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The increasing pace of scientific discoveries, including the race to put a man on the moon in the late 1950s, meant that there was widespread enthusiasm and support for science in the 20th century. In addition, science produced the first oral contraceptive pill which started to be marketed in 1960. The Pill showed that science could be a major ulterior force for changing society.

Pope St John XXIII had made reference to the marvellous progress of science in his day and on the need for science.[1] The feeling was that through science modern society would be able to give a better life to all and that the Church had to keep up with this inexorable progress. This appeared to be the principal motivation for calling of Second Vatican Council aggiornamento or the bringing of the Church up to speed.

Professor Roberto Mattei has revealed behind-the-scenes activity during the Council.[2] Apart from aggiornamento John XXIII did not appear to have an agenda but sought input from all the participants about what needed to be discussed. The number of participants asking for Communism to be denounced at the Council was greater than any other request. This however never happened despite both John XXIII and Pope St Paul VI having read the secrets of Fatima and knowing Our Lady had warned about Russia spreading its errors. It was a major flaw of the Council. In the end the Council embraced ecumenism, religious freedom and inter-religious dialogue and state-church separation.[3] Russia was effectively free to spread its errors, and the Catholic Church was no longer insisting on being the only source of truth. The demands of a secular world made the Church move from a position of motivation by spirit and truth to motivation by empathy and mercy.

If we go back to what motivated John XXIII to bring the Council, it seemed to be the excitement that with science the world was moving quickly forward and all problems could be solved. The major motivator of changes in the world in the 1960s was scientific discovery: publicly everyone was excited about space exploration, privately about contraception. Through contraception, however, science helped secularise society. Initially, many in the Church saw contraception as a science-driven advance for society rather than an improper use of science. Pope Paul VI belatedly but bravely stood up against contraception but the Church did not see itself as having jurisdiction over the scientific world. Pope Paul rather gently chided scientists that they might have “peace of conscience”[4] if their methods did not stop the transmission of life. He also might have issued a stern warning to pharmaceutical companies and pharmacists if he realised the huge market that contraception was opening up for them.

The Church has been repeatedly told it was against science. However, modern science arose out of the fact that in the Bible, God is shown to be very vested in the temporal world. This led to the development of calculus and inductive scientific reasoning.[5] Pope St John Paul II confirmed Galileo and Gaudium et Spes (36) that faith and science can never be at odds with each other.[6] Not only is the Church not against science but science is the only source of truth aside from revelation – a gift of God to both religious and secular mankind. It should therefore be at the centre of the Church’s orbit, and in the Church’s dealings with the secular world, as a common trusted language. Also, church-state separation makes no sense if science can be used by both church and state as both should come to the same conclusions in keeping with natural law, since natural law is written in everyone’s heart.[7] It would seem that the aggiornamento of Second Vatican Council might have been better for the Church, had it been centred on firmly co-opting science into the Church.[8]

[1] Veterum Sapientia 4.

[2] De Mattei, R. (2010) Il Concilio Vaticano II, una storia mai scritta. Torino, Lindau. p. 492.

[3] Cf. Dignitatis Humanae 15.

[4] Humanae Vitae 24.

[5] Pullicino, P. (2023) The Science of Ezekiel’s Chariot of YHWH Vision. Richmond, Tiger of the Stripe. p. 255.

[6] Fides et Ratio 29.

[7] Gilson, E. (1956) The Christian Philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas. Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press. p. 267. Valid interpretation of scientific results is still dependent on spiritual guidance (Pullicino, P. (2023) Ibid. p.250)

[8] This might be achieved by a) setting up a dicastery for science, b) becoming involved in research, (particularly into negative effects of science (e.g. contraception, abortion) that remain unpublished), c) highlighting unethical science: basic science, stem cell/embryo or clinical research. d) highlighting immoral practice in hospitals: beating heart donors, abortion wards, end of life “care” e) applying science to optimise health of clergy and to biblical study (cf. footnote 5).

( Photo: The Council Fathers seated during the Second Vatican Council. The bishop in the front row is Aimé-Georges Martimort (credit Lothar Wolleh.)

The post Science, contraception, and the missed opportunity of Vatican II first appeared on Catholic Herald.

The post Science, contraception, and the missed opportunity of Vatican II appeared first on Catholic Herald.

Are you a "speculator" or an "investor"? This is an essential question that every individual deploying capital into the financial markets must answer. The reason is that how you answer that question determines how you should behave during market cycles. Over the last 15 years, due to repeated rounds of monetary and fiscal interventions, most investors are simply chasing performance. However, why would you NOT expect this to happen when financial advisers, the mainstream media, and Wall Street continually press the idea that investors "must beat" some random benchmark index from one year to the next?

However, if you are only chasing performance, are you an "investor" or a "speculator"

While some may hold a negative connotation of being called a "speculator," that would be incorrect. However, it is critical to understand the difference, as being a "speculator" in financial markets requires a different set of "rules" than being an "investor."

Let's begin our discussion with a definition of both.

• Speculator: A person who utilizes strategies within a shorter time frame, attempting to outperform traditional longer-term investors. Speculators take on risk, especially when anticipating future price movements, hoping to make large gains to offset the risk.
• Investor: A person who systematically grows wealth by buying assets with reasonable levels of risk in exchange for long-term growth. 

I asked ChatGPT to provide a table of the key differences between being an investor and a speculator.

When you examine your approach and expectations of investment returns, which definition describes you?

There is nothing wrong with either approach, but each requires a very different set of rules and expectations.

But no rule says you can't be a little bit of both.

Investor Meets Speculator

As portfolio managers, we are, by nature, long-term investors. We focus on fundamental data like free cash flow, return on invested capital, earnings growth rates, and sales. While fundamental investing certainly provides better long-term returns, it becomes difficult for investors to stay the course during volatile markets. This is where our emotional behaviors, such as loss avoidance, confirmation bias, herding, and availability bias, interfere with our decision-making. Such is why we also engage in various actions to mitigate risk and reduce volatility.

A good example of this was in a post on January 7th entitled "Curb Your Enthusiasm in 2025."

In that article, we explained why we expected increased market volatility and lower returns this year. Even though we are long-term fundamental investors, we suggested taking specific actions more often associated with market speculators. To wit:

"While 2025 presents its share of challenges, the solution is not to abandon the market altogether. Instead, investors can take practical steps to navigate these uncertainties. None of this means the next “bear market” is lurking. The data does suggest that being overly aggressive, taking excess risk, and increasing leverage may not have the desired outcome. Since exceedingly bullish markets are a function of psychology, they can last longer and go further than logic predicts. The requirement to “end” such a phase is an exogenous event that changes psychology from bullish to bearish. Such is when the stampede for the exits occurs, and prices can decline very quickly. As such, investors need guidelines to participate in the market advance. But, of course, the hard part is keeping those gains when corrections inevitably occur. This is our approach as portfolio managers for our clients."

1. Tighten up stop-loss levels to current support levels for each position. (Provides identifiable exit points when the market reverses.)
2. Hedge portfolios against significant market declines. (Non-correlated assets, short-market positions, index put options)
3. Take profits in positions that have been big winners. (Rebalancing overbought or extended positions to capture gains but continuing to participate in the advance).
4. Sell laggards and losers. (If something isn’t working in a market melt-up, it most likely won’t work during a broad decline. It is better to eliminate the risk early.)
5. Raise cash and rebalance portfolios to target weightings. (Rebalancing risk regularly keeps hidden risks somewhat mitigated.)

"Notice, nothing in there says, 'Sell everything and go to cash.'"

Those actions of reducing risk, rebalancing portfolios, and taking profits are things that speculators should do to mitigate risk. However, many individuals don't understand the difference between being an investor and a speculator. Let me explain:

When markets rise sharply, individuals invest capital in them without understanding the underlying dynamics or fundamentals. They buy an asset because it is going up. The more the number goes up, the more they buy of it. However, when the price eventually falls, they fail to take action and get trapped within their own psychological biases. At this point, they are generally "investors" in that asset and "hope" that someday it will get back to even.

This same cycle has repeated throughout history, whether in stocks, bonds, gold, or bitcoin. However, investing, ultimately, is about managing the risks, which will substantially reduce your ability to "stay in the game long enough" to "win." Robert Hagstrom, CFA, penned a piece discussing the differences between being an investor and a speculator:

"Philip Carret, who wrote The Art of Speculation (1930), believed “motive” was the test for determining the difference between investment and speculation. Carret connected the investor to the economics of the business and the speculator to price. 'Speculation,' wrote Carret, 'may be defined as the purchase or sale of securities or commodities in expectation of profiting by fluctuations in their prices.'”

Chasing markets is the purest form of speculation. It is simply a bet on prices going higher rather than determining if the price being paid for those assets is selling at a discount to fair value. When prices are NOT selling at a discount, investors devise various rationalizations about why this time is different.

When you look at your portfolio today and assess its risk, are you an investor or a speculator? But more critically, whether you currently own stocks, bonds, gold, or bitcoin, are you a "speculator calling yourself an investor" and coming up with rationalizations to support your view?

To help you in your quest to be a better long-term investor, here are 10 investing guidelines from legendary investors.

10-Investing Guidelines From Legendary Investors

1) Jeffrey Gundlach, DoubleLine

“The trick is to take risks and be paid for taking those risks, but to take a diversified basket of risks in a portfolio.”

This is a common theme throughout this post. Great investors focus on “risk management” because “risk” is not a function of how much money you will make, but how much you will lose when you are wrong. In investing or gambling, you can only play as long as you have capital. If you lose too much capital while taking on excessive risk, you can no longer play the game.

Be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy. One of the best times to invest is when uncertainty and fear are at their highest.

2) Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates

“The biggest mistake investors make is to believe that what happened in the recent past is likely to persist. They assume that something that was a good investment in the recent past is still a good investment. Typically, high past returns simply imply that an asset has become more expensive and is a poorer, not better, investment.”

Nothing good or bad goes on forever. Investors repeatedly make the mistake of thinking, “This time is different.” The reality is that despite central bank interventions or other artificial inputs, business and economic cycles cannot be repealed. Ultimately, what goes up must and will come down. How many investments in history have never lost value at some point, and in many cases, a lot of value? The answer is none. The same goes for assets with a significant correction, as long as they are fundamentally sound.

3) Seth Klarman, Baupost

“Most investors are primarily oriented toward return, how much they can make and pay little attention to risk, how much they can lose.”

The most significant risk in investing is investor behavior driven by cognitive biases. Greed and fear dominate investors' investment cycles, which ultimately lead to “buying high and selling low.”

4) Jeremy Grantham, GMO

“You don’t get rewarded for taking risk; you get rewarded for buying cheap assets. And if the assets you bought got pushed up in price simply because they were risky, then you are not going to be rewarded for taking a risk; you are going to be punished for it.”

Successful investors avoid “risk” at all costs, even if it means underperforming in the short term. The reason is that while the media and Wall Street have you focused on chasing market returns in the short term, ultimately, the excess “risk” built into your portfolio will lead to extremely poor long-term returns. Like Wile E. Coyote, chasing higher financial markets will eventually lead you over the cliff.

5) Jesse Livermore, Speculator

“The speculator’s deadly enemies are: ignorance, greed, fear and hope. All the statute books in the world and all the rule books on all the Exchanges of the earth cannot eliminate these from the human animal….”

Allowing emotions to rule your investment strategy is, and always has been, a recipe for disaster. All great investors follow a strict discipline, strategy, and risk management diet. Emotional mistakes show up in the returns of individuals' portfolios over time. (Source: Dalbar)

6) Howard Marks, Oaktree Capital Management

“Rule No. 1: Most things will prove to be cyclical.

Rule No. 2: Some of the greatest opportunities for gain and loss come when other people forget Rule No. 1.”

As with Ray Dalio, realizing nothing lasts forever is critical to long-term investing. To “buy low,” one must first " sell high.” Understanding that all things are cyclical suggests that investments become more prone to declines after long price increases.

7) James Montier, GMO

“There is a simple, although not easy alternative [to forecasting]… Buy when an asset is cheap, and sell when an asset gets expensive…Valuation is the primary determinant of long-term returns, and the closest thing we have to a law of gravity in finance.”

“Cheap” is when an asset sells for less than its intrinsic value. “Cheap” is not a low price per share. When a stock has a very low price, it is usually priced there for a reason. However, a very high-priced stock CAN be cheap. Price per share is only part of the valuation determination, not the measure of value itself.

8) George Soros, Soros Capital Management

“It’s not whether you’re right or wrong that’s important, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong.”

Back to risk management: Being right and making money is great when markets are rising. However, rising markets tend to mask investment risk, which is quickly revealed during market declines. If you fail to manage the risk in your portfolio and give up all of your previous gains and then some, then you lose the investment game.

9) Jason Zweig, Wall Street Journal

“Regression to the mean is the most powerful law in financial physics: Periods of above-average performance are inevitably followed by below-average returns, and bad times inevitably set the stage for surprisingly good performance.”

The chart below shows the 3-year average of annual inflation-adjusted returns of the S&P 500 from 1900. The power of regression is seen. Historically, when returns exceeded 15%, it was not long before they fell below 0% below the long-term mean, which devastated much of investors’ capital.

10) Howard Marks, Oaktree Capital Management

“The biggest investing errors come not from factors that are informational or analytical, but from those that are psychological.”

As should be obvious, the most significant driver of long-term investment returns is minimizing psychological investment mistakes.

As an investor, it is simply your job to step away from your “emotions” and look objectively at the market around you. Is it currently dominated by “greed” or “fear?” Your long-term returns will depend greatly not only on how you answer that question, but also on managing the inherent risk.

What should be obvious is that even great long-term investors adopted some of the traits of speculators to manage risk and volatility. Nothing says you can't do the same.

Being a pure speculator and trying to "day trade" the market by jumping on the latest trends rarely works out well over the long term. However, as you will note, every great investor throughout history has had one core philosophy in common: managing the inherent risk of investing to conserve and preserve investment capital.

“If you run out of chips, you are out of the game.”

The post Speculator Or Investor? 10-Rules From Legendary Investors appeared first on RIA.

The way God set up the Church is one Pope, a lot more Bishops, and exponentially more laymen. This should tell us something about our role in the Church. Clearly, the “institutional” Church is not our role, either to be in it or be overly concerned with it. A few years ago, I wrote a column about three men who became overly concerned about the institutional Church and how their unremitting…

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“And the enemies of the Lord … shall come to nothing and vanish like smoke” (Ps 36:20)

Lying in State, the Body of Francis Appears to be Turning Dark

(image: Antonio Masiello/Getty Images – cropped)

The body of the late Jesuit apostate Jorge Bergoglio (‘Pope Francis’) has been lying in state inside an open coffin in St. Peter’s Basilica since Tuesday, April 22. Tens of thousands of mourners have been paying their respects.

On Friday evening at 8:00 pm local time, the casket will be sealed. The funeral will take place on Saturday at 10:00 am, followed by a procession to the Basilica of St.… READ MORE

The US president’s new merch has reignited third-term rumors

US President Donald Trump has launched a new line of “TRUMP 2028” merchandise, fueling speculation that he aims to seek a third term in office.

The baseball caps, now available through the official Trump campaign store, feature Trump’s name and the year 2028 embroidered in bold block letters, evoking the iconic “Make America Great Again” look. The shop also offers T-shirts in classic red and navy blue featuring the same slogan – along with a promise to “Rewrite the Rules.”

Last month, Trump said he is “not joking” about potentially seeking a third term, claiming that there are “methods” to pursue another run despite the US Constitution’s two-term limit on the presidency.

https://t.co/9ANjNT4QGt pic.twitter.com/6y5nDVVMI1

Asked by NBC News about a hypothetical scenario in which Vice President J.D. Vance could run and then hand over the office to him, Trump replied: “That’s one. But there are others too.”

Although Trump noted that “it is far too early to think” about 2028, the merchandise rollout has reignited speculation about his future plans. The campaign store has warned of up to ten business days of processing time due to “high demand.”

Trump won the 2024 election by a wide margin against Democratic candidate and then-Vice President Kamala Harris, becoming the second president in US history to serve two non-consecutive terms.

The 22nd Amendment states that no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice. However, Trump allies have floated legal arguments challenging or reinterpreting the amendment’s wording, hinting at potential legal or political strategies to pave the way for a third run.

READ MORE: Bookmakers see 20% chance of third Trump term – media

Earlier this year, Republican Congressman Andy Ogles introduced a constitutional amendment that would allow presidents to serve three non-consecutive terms, though it has so far gained little traction. Amendments to the Constitution require approval by a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate, followed by ratification from three-quarters of the states.

Israel has argued that The Hague has no jurisdiction over its citizens

The International Criminal Court (ICC) Appeals Chamber has instructed a lower panel to reconsider Israel’s objections to the court’s jurisdiction over arrest warrants issued for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, according to a ruling published on Thursday.

Last November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for allegedly committing grave atrocities, including the use of starvation as a method of warfare, during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza launched in response to a deadly 2023 raid by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Israel, which is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, argued that the court lacks jurisdiction over its citizens. At the time, the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber dismissed Israel’s objections – filed before the warrants were issued – as premature.

However, the Appeals Chamber has now determined that the lower panel “committed an error of law” by failing to adequately address Israel’s arguments, and has remanded the matter for a new ruling.

The directive does not annul the existing warrants but requires the Pre-Trial Chamber to reevaluate the substance of Israel’s jurisdictional objections.

Israeli officials have welcomed the Appeals Chamber’s decision – but criticized it for refusing to suspend the arrest warrants immediately. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar stated on X that the arrest warrants were issued unlawfully and are “null and void.”

“We said it from the start: The International Criminal Court in The Hague (ICC) doesn’t have, and never had, jurisdiction to issue arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister and its former Minister of Defense,” Saar wrote.

Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, accused the ICC of acting “as a political tool serving Israel’s enemies.”

“The decision to revisit the question of jurisdiction exposes the lack of legitimacy behind the political arrest warrants,” Danon said, according to a statement from his office. “Israel will continue to defend itself, in coordination with its partners, and will not remain silent in the face of such hypocrisy.”

The ICC Prosecutor’s Office has acknowledged the Appeals Chamber’s ruling and is currently reviewing the decision, although the timeline for the reconsideration has not been specified. The court had also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif for alleged war crimes, which was withdrawn in February 2025 following confirmation of his death.

Editor’s Note: This essay is part of a week-long series of essays at Public Discourse reflecting on Pope Francis’s pontificate, his legacy, and the Catholic Church’s future.

Witnessing the tireless dedication of Pope Francis over the last twelve years to those most in need—the poor, the sick, the rejected, those suffering in body and spirit—was an extraordinary gift to me. After his passing, I found myself thinking: How often today does God bless his people with a shepherd, particularly one with significant health challenges, who devotes such intense energy and affection to all that seek his attention?

I have no idea how Catholic prelates can prepare for the task of governing such a large organization in our complex and tumultuous world. Buenos Aires is not an easy place to be bishop: when asked why he never visited his homeland after his election, Pope Francis would joke, “I spent 76 years in Argentina. That’s enough, isn’t it?” But it was his home, and when he became Bishop of Rome, he came to a very different place, both in the culture of its people and in the particular issues that the Church faced there. What a profound cross it must have been for him to be suddenly, and unexpectedly, catapulted from being a subway-riding bishop on the verge of retirement, to steering the universal Church through the perilous waters of sex scandals and the Vatican’s grave financial difficulties. 

Even apart from the perennial challenges of governance, contemporary popes face the perennial task of confronting the needs of the wounded modern world—“smelling of the sheep,” as Francis would say—without becoming of the world. I especially appreciated the pope’s focus on fighting clericalism and raising up the laity and their contributions to the Church. On one hand, clergy need to learn how to leave in the laity’s hands the political and other temporal responsibilities that are the latter’s proper domain; on the other hand, the laity should often be called to assist the clergy in matters of the latter’s own proper responsibilities of Church government. Harmonizing these apparently dueling needs is no easy task; it is especially difficult when coupled with the challenge in any large organization—like the Church—of finding and training the right people to assume positions of leadership.

Pope Francis also devoted much of his pontificate to the challenge of implementing a culture of love in support of the truth in contemporary culture—a culture that does not grasp what authentic love is, because we treat love as a commodity. Many people—young people especially—are eager for caritas in veritate, and the pope sought to teach it to them through many of the themes of his pontificate: accompanying others, recognizing the concrete circumstances that we fallen human beings can find ourselves in, and always being witnesses to God’s infinite mercy. 

Learning to Find Friends in Unexpected Places

The occasion of the pope’s passing gives us a chance to reflect on the lessons he has left us on how to give witness to truth and love in the modern world. What is the path forward—for the Church and for all people of goodwill? Following the pope’s example, we should ask how God is calling ordinary men and women to engage with the world today—a world in which people, particularly young people brought up amid a culture of chaos and confusion, are calling out for meaning and purpose. The question is especially urgent for those of us, like myself, who grew up in very different circumstances, often with more support than what many young people today have. I was blessed to be raised by a hard-working father who revered his wife, and a loving and deeply God-fearing mother, who both generously gave themselves to me and my six siblings. Not everything was great: I was raised in a small, poor town in Mexico’s Sonoran desert—now the cradle of the Caborca drug cartel. But on the whole, I had a very happy childhood. My young adult years were similarly fortunate. I earned advanced degrees, moved to the United States where I enjoyed enormous opportunities, and, thanks to the intervention of a friend and one of my brothers, I was rescued from going down the wrong path. I found a better way to which God was calling me, in Opus Dei. 

The spirit of Opus Dei, a part of the Catholic Church, encompasses many ideals, one of which is the commitment to finding God in the parts of life where he might at first seem most distant. Pope Francis himself expressed this ideal very well in an audience of his I attended in November 2014:

When the Lord invites us to become saints, he doesn’t call us to something heavy, sad . . . quite the contrary! It’s an invitation to share in his joy, to live and to offer with joy every moment of our life, by making it become at the same time a gift of love for the people around us. If we understand this, everything changes and takes on new meaning, a beautiful meaning, a meaning that begins with little everyday things. For example: a lady goes to the market to buy groceries and finds a neighbour there, so they begin to talk and then they come to gossiping and this lady says: “No, no, no I won’t speak badly about anyone.” This is a step towards sainthood, it helps you become more holy. Then, at home, your son wants to talk a little about his ideas: “Oh, I am so tired, I worked so hard today. . . .”—“But,” [you tell yourself,] “you sit down and listen to your son, who needs it!” . . . [T]his is a step towards sainthood. . . .  These are little things, but many little steps to sanctity. Every step towards sainthood makes us better people, free from selfishness and being closed within ourselves, and opens us to our brothers and sisters and to their needs.

Eventually I came to see that one area of secular life where people needed more help finding God’s truth was, paradoxically, in academia—in institutions of higher education ostensibly devoted to truth. I made my way to Princeton, New Jersey, where I helped start the Witherspoon Institute and the Foundation for Excellence in Higher Education (FEHE). I saw these as means to help students and professors rediscover higher education’s vocation to truth-seeking—and perhaps, from knowing the truth, to eventually find its Author. 

But I soon discovered another truth that Pope Francis recalled frequently throughout his papacy: that even those who seemed far from God, at least outwardly, could teach me a thing or two. One such person was my good friend, Princeton Professor Robert “Bob” Hollander. I got to know Bob through our common interest in tennis, which we regularly played together. I learned much from him during our after-game conversations about many things unrelated to religion. Bob eventually told me he was atheist, which for a young, zealous Christian like me was unacceptable. At first I asked myself, “Do I want to spend so much of my time with a heathen?” But I resisted my initial impulse to quit our friendship, and years later I came to realize what a good decision that was. Bob eventually had a profound, positive impact on me, because he helped me understand friendship better, thereby bringing me closer to the truth and to God. More practically, he gave me invaluable counsel at crucial moments, without which Witherspoon and FEHE might never have come to be.

Not many years after I came to the Princeton area and befriended Bob, I read an article that discussed Princeton University’s desire to expand its humanities offerings. I saw this as an opportunity for me to start contributing directly to higher education, by finding money to support Princeton’s effort. I was an engineer by training, not a humanist, so I could contribute little in the way of academic expertise; but I did have a lot of experience raising money for nonprofit work, from my time in Opus Dei. I went to Bob with an idea and a proposal: What if I could obtain a grant to support a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton’s Humanities Council? Would Princeton be interested? Bob’s response was immediate: We can make this happen. 

And it did happen, but by a path that I would not have expected. Bob helped organize a lunch with Alexander Nehamas and Carol Rigolot—respectively the Chair and Executive Director of Princeton’s Humanities Council—along with Bob, and myself, to talk about the possible grant. I felt myself surrounded by people who were, in Pope Francis’s words, “on the margins” of God’s Kingdom—people who were quite secular and perhaps even in personal disagreement with Christian teachings. At the time Opus Dei was known for being “ultraconservative,” and therefore I felt the need to mention this fact to them, in case they feared it might cause controversy. 

But my fear turned out to be unfounded. Nehamas and Rigolot welcomed the proposal for the fellowship, which was filled first by the late Michael Sugrue in the 1997–98 academic year. Nehamas found Sugrue to be “an exceptional teacher-scholar,” and he and others expressed sincere gratitude to me for helping bring him to Princeton. The experience was such a success that the Humanities Council eventually developed the fellowship into Princeton’s Society of Fellows, which today offers some of the most prestigious and sought-after opportunities in the academy. By taking this risk, Bob and I helped spur a renewal of humanities teaching at Princeton.

I later asked Bob why people who did not share my fundamental beliefs about truth would have gone along with my idea. He thought they simply didn’t care what I believed. He quipped after one of our tennis matches, “Luis, you are not a threat around here because you are Mexican, you are an engineer, and you didn’t go to Princeton.” I laughed hard. All the same, I think that particular experience revealed something that Pope Francis had been trying to remind us of: that the desire for truth is in everyone, and that if we present our interest in truth joyfully, even those who disagree with us might still recognize us as friends.

The things I learned from this experience planted the seeds in my mind for bigger projects. Five years later, in 2003, Robert P. George and I launched the Witherspoon Institute. Our idea was to sponsor teaching and research that we thought was urgently needed in academia but did not yet fit into its priorities. A particular area of concern to us was research on the importance of the traditional structure of the family to the well-being of children and all of society. Perhaps the most famous such project that we sponsored was the 2012 New Family Structures Study of Mark Regnerus. Through the use of good-faith and reason-based empirical methods, Regnerus did an enormous service to our understanding of the family, despite suffering a great deal of ideologically motivated backlash, thanks to Witherspoon’s support. And despite criticism, the research still stands today. Over time more and more people are coming to recognize its truth.

In 2013, Robby George and I founded the Foundation for Excellence in Higher Education (FEHE) to help students pursue truth through authentic friendship and robust intellectual life. Among the numerous related projects in which I have been involved, none gives me greater satisfaction than the Stanford Civics Initiative (SCI), which I helped Josiah (“Josh”) Ober to found and develop. Although in the end my contribution to the project was minor, I’ve been blessed by the deep and lasting friendship I developed with Josh as a result—a friendship as unexpected as that which I made with Bob.

I would have been able to do none of these things had I not, as Pope Francis exhorted us, taken the chance to befriend a man like Bob, even though on the surface we might have seemed unsuited for one another. Bob gave me practical guidance without which my ideals would not have become a reality. But more importantly, he reminded me that even people who seem far from God still bear the dignity of being made in God’s image. Even though they may not recognize God—or at least appear not to do so—they are still made for him, and for truth, which they are always seeking in one way or another. I think that the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus articulated this point quite well:

For paradise we long. For perfection we were made . . . This longing is the source of the hunger and dissatisfaction that mark our lives . . . This longing makes our love and friendship possible, and so very unsatisfactory. Hunger is for . . . nothing less than perfect communion with the . . . one in whom all the fragments of our scattered existence come together . . . we must not stifle this longing. It is a holy dissatisfaction. Such dissatisfaction is not a sickness to be healed, but the seed of a promise to be fulfilled.

The desire for truth can become a powerful bond of friendship—“intellectual friendship” as we say at Witherspoon and FEHE—as my friendship with Bob showed me. The experience also taught me to expand my heart, to understand better the mystery of what it means to be a person. Without this man, an atheist, I would have been a lesser human being. And, of course, Bob benefited from my friendship in turn: not just by the friendship itself, but from participating in the good it did for higher education—whether directly, in the Society of Fellows, or indirectly in the projects to which the Society gave rise: Witherspoon and FEHE. And then there were the occasional discussions about religion that we would have after tennis. I still maintain the hope that, when he died, the memory of those conversations helped him, in some mysterious way, to go to God. 

Building Blocks for Civic Engagement in a Secular World

Pope Francis, it seems to me, was trying throughout his pontificate to urge Christians to find their “Bob” who might be out there—someone who, despite appearing to be far from God, is still searching for truth and friendship, has much truth to impart in turn, and has much good to do in the world that he might not do without our help. Bob taught me a great deal, but two things seem especially worth noting, since they were also close to the pope’s heart. They are what I call building blocks for civic engagement in our secular world. 

The first is that which the Church proclaimed in Dignitatis Humanae and reaffirmed under Pope Francis. That every human person, even if he is an atheist like Bob, has an ineradicable dignity, because he is a being 

“endowed with reason and free will and therefore privileged to bear personal responsibility.” At the same time every person is “impelled by nature” to seek truth, and we should strive not to let appearances distract us from this deeper reality. And yet, “[t]he truth cannot impose itself except by virtue of its own truth, as it makes its entrance into the mind at once quietly and with power.” Therefore man cannot fulfill his “moral obligation to seek truth” unless he be free, “[enjoying] immunity from external coercion as well as psychological freedom.” 

In other words, the best context for bringing others to truth is precisely through the kind of intellectual friendship that Bob and I had. 

The second truth is something I learned through my work with Witherspoon and FEHE (which were inspired by what Bob and I achieved at Princeton University): namely, how vital the man-woman traditional family structure is for society. I also realized how important intellectual friendship was for defending the family. On one hand, the best way to make the case for the family is by appealing to truths that all people can understand—in this case, the truths of social science—and we must be confident that people will respond to truth. At the same time, that truth has to be presented well, by being framed in love. We need to be patient with those who disagree on fundamental truths about marriage and family, and we must strive to express ourselves in ways that will win them over. We need to show them that we care about these truths not to impose ourselves on others, but to serve others out of love. We must show our interlocutors that we love and respect them because they, like all people, are God’s children, just as I tried to draw Bob to God above all by being his friend.

Truth and charity should go hand in hand. One cannot love others unless that love is grounded in truth, just as love cannot make a family unless it be grounded in the truths of human nature. At the same time, the deeper one understands the truth, the more one loves it and other people—who are made for truth—and the more easily one can express truth winsomely, because of one’s confidence in its truth. 

It is not enough to have the truth and to be able to argue logically for it, although all that is necessary. As Pope Francis reminded us, it is also vitally important to teach truth by the example of one’s love for others—by “accompanying” them along the difficult journey of life, as the pope liked to say. If we are to move forward toward a more just society, we must learn to accompany one another along the difficult, often surprising, and deeply rewarding path toward truth.

For his willingness to answer God’s call and the call of the Church, and for his faithful service until the end, I am grateful to Pope Francis.

Image by Gabriel Sozzi and sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

Officials in Kiev fear a “worst-case scenario” in which Washington cuts off all aid, according to the German tabloid

Kiev is bracing for a “worst-case scenario” in which US President Donald Trump cuts off all American support, German tabloid Bild has reported, citing anonymous sources within the Ukrainian government.

Trump has reportedly increased pressure on Ukraine to quickly accept Washington’s “final offer” to resolve the conflict. He has also warned that if negotiations between Moscow and Kiev stall, the US may “take a pass” and withdraw from its role as a mediator.

“We are preparing for the worst-case scenario… and that means an end to US support,” an unnamed government insider told the paper.

Another Ukrainian diplomat reportedly said “What is on paper and what is being signaled to us in the negotiations is unacceptable.” 

The US president has been pushing for a resolution to the conflict, while also seeking a minerals extraction agreement with Ukraine to help offset the billions of dollars Washington has spent on military and financial aid. Trump temporarily halted military supplies and intelligence sharing with Kiev following a public dispute with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky at the White House in February.

On Wednesday, Trump reiterated that Zelensky – who he once described as a “dictator without elections” – has been “more difficult to deal with” than Russian President Vladimir Putin. The remark came after Zelensky publicly rejected a reported provision of the US peace framework, insisting earlier this week that Kiev will not even discuss formally recognizing Crimea as Russian territory.

According to Bild, some officials in Kiev hope that Trump’s personal jabs at Zelensky were merely his way to apply pressure. “Our hope was that it was Trump’s negotiating tactic,” the outlet cited a Ukrainian government insider as saying. The report added that Kiev is now trying to renegotiate with Washington while simultaneously seeking support from its European sponsors.

Kiev is still receiving weapons pledged by the previous US administration, but no new aid packages have been authorized since Trump took office, Zelensky said on Monday. His recent pleas for additional Patriot batteries and missiles have also gone unanswered.

Moscow has maintained that it is open to peace talks, provided its core security demands are addressed. It opposes any NATO presence on Ukrainian soil and has demanded that Kiev recognize Russia’s new borders and abandon its plans to join the US-led military bloc. Moscow has condemned the continued flow of Western weapons as detrimental to any lasting peace.

READ MORE: White House accuses Zelensky of megaphone diplomacy

The Russian government has also said it will not accept a temporary freeze of the conflict, which would only lead to renewed hostilities later on, citing Ukraine’s multiple violations of an Easter ceasefire and an earlier US-mediated moratorium on strikes against energy infrastructure as proof of Kiev’s untrustworthiness.

The selection process for the next United Nations Secretary-General, set to replace António Guterres in 2026, has ignited debate over a push to prioritize female candidates, effectively sidelining men.

And they’re reportedly all radical abortion activists.

Informal discussions within the UN General Assembly and Security Council, as outlined in a letter from General Assembly President Philemon Yang, emphasize appointing a woman for the first time in the UN’s 80-year history. This follows a 2015 resolution urging gender balance and regional rotation, with feminist groups and some member states, including France, arguing that a female leader is overdue after eight male predecessors.

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The process, governed by the UN Charter, involves the 15-member Security Council recommending a candidate for General Assembly approval, with permanent members (U.S., Russia, China, France, UK) holding veto power. Names like Amina Mohammed (Nigeria), Kristalina Georgieva (Bulgaria), and Michelle Bachelet (Chile) have surfaced as potential female contenders, though no formal nominations are yet public.

Here’s more:

The race to select the next UN Secretary-General of the United Nations is well underway. All the frontrunners are women, and they are well-known abortion advocates.

The undisputed front-runner for the UN’s top job is Michelle Bachelet, a two-term president of Chile who led the UN agency for Women as well as the UN human rights office. She is a known champion of abortion rights and gender ideology and has been described as the Hillary Clinton of Latin America.

As president of Chile, she successfully shepherded a multi-year campaign to legalize abortion in Chile. As head of UN Women and the highest UN human rights official she streamlined abortion promotion in the UN bureaucracy as well as the promotion of transgender rights, including self-identification.

She issued a scathing attack against the U.S. Supreme Court after the 2022 Dobbs decision. In that case the court declared abortion was an issue that each American state should legislate democratically and not a constitutional right. Bachelet called the decision a “huge blow to women’s human rights and gender equality” and said that “abortion is firmly rooted in international human rights law and is at the core of women and girls’ autonomy.”

Given her track-record Bachelet is the preferred candidate of the feminist left.

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