A fresh poll shows Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton narrowly leading Democrat James Talarico in the must-win Senate race, offering Republicans a much-needed boost in a contest that has increasingly given party leaders heartburn.
<a href="https://emersoncollegepolling.com/texas-2026-poll-paxton-and-talarico/">An Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media survey</a> released Thursday shows Paxton with 47% support, narrowly ahead of Talarico at 46%. Another 5% of voters remain undecided, while 2% back another candidate.
The one-point difference falls within the poll&#8217;s three-point margin of error, making the contest effectively a dead heat. But it&#8217;s the first poll to show Paxton ahead since early June, according to <a href="https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/senate/general/2026/texas/talarico-vs-paxton">RealClearPolitics</a>, as Republicans worry that low GOP turnout and a Democratic-friendly political landscape could flip one of the reddest states in the nation — and with it, control of the U.S. Senate.
&#8220;Despite having a three-month head start and getting millions from out-of-state billionaires with deep ties to Jeffrey Epstein, James Talarico is already losing steam and falling behind,&#8221; RNC spokesman Zach Kraft told The Daily Wire. &#8220;It should come as no surprise that Texas wants a MAGA warrior like Ken Paxton over a gender-confused freak like Talarico.&#8221; 
Emerson College Polling Executive Director Spencer Kimball said the Texas Senate race is sharply divided by age, with voters under 50 favoring Talarico by 15 points, 53% to 38%, while voters over 50 back Paxton by 11 points, 53% to 42%.
Digging deeper, Paxton holds his strongest advantage among white voters and men, while Talarico leads among most black and Hispanic voters. Talarico holds just a one-point advantage among women after facing backlash over his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-book-is-gay-read-the-sexually-explicit-volumes-james-talaricos-church-gives-kids">views</a> on Christianity, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-james-talarico-says-he-loves-trans-children-in-unearthed-clip">“love” for transgender children</a>, and disdain for the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-audio-thats-blowing-a-hole-in-talaricos-christian-persona">American flag.</a> 
Top issues for Texas voters include the economy (30%), immigration (19%), threats to democracy (14%), and healthcare (13%). Republican voters rank immigration as their top issue (32%), while Democrats (33%) and independents (31%) rate the economy as their top concern.
Those issues have not stopped either campaign from diving into hot-button cultural issues as both sides wage a fierce battle for Christian voters who will likely play a pivotal role in November. <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2026/08/13/texas-ken-paxton-james-talarico-religion-campaign-christianity/">The Texas Tribune</a> reported Thursday that Paxton’s and Talarico’s differing views of Christianity have emerged as a defining issue shaping the race in a state where nearly half of voters say faith is “very important” in their lives.
A pro-Paxton super PAC <a href="https://x.com/approject/status/2085795525354234239?s=20">went viral</a> after using artificial intelligence to remake Lyndon B. Johnson’s famous “Daisy” ad, depicting a young girl being prepared to undergo a sex-change operation as an AI-generated Talarico stands at the operating table.
“She dreams of growing up, falling in love, becoming a mother,” an AI narrator says. “The trans industry preys on confused children. Irreversible puberty blockers. Cross-sex hormones. Sex-change surgeries.”
Talarico, meanwhile, is seeking to make inroads with evangelical voters — the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/state/texas/">largest religious group</a> in Texas — by touting his Baptist upbringing despite his support for abortion, calling God “nonbinary,” opposing the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools, and his affiliation to a progressive Presbyterian denomination.
A <a href="https://x.com/jamestalarico/status/2087706393247952952?s=20">30-second spot</a> features his grandfather: &#8220;As a Baptist preacher in South Texas, he taught me to follow the two great commandments — love God, and love your neighbor,&#8221; Talarico says, suggesting the Gospel message includes reducing the cost of healthcare, housing, and groceries. 
A recent Fox News poll found that <a href="https://x.com/JWheelertv/status/2082987392626020796?s=20">78% of white evangelical Christians</a> in the Lone Star State plan to vote against Talarico, despite concerns that Paxton’s personal scandals and marriage struggles could alienate the key demographic. 
“I truly believe that God just delivered me, not because I am a great person, because God is sovereign and he does what he wants to do,” Paxton said on Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgTrzsr0B_c">podcast</a>, referring to the unsuccessful 2023 impeachment effort against him. “I don’t take credit for it; it’s really by the grace of God.” 
The <a href="https://www.cookpolitical.com/senate/race/488686">Cook Political Report</a> ranks the race as Lean Republican.

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Ken Paxton Gets Some Much Needed Good News In Race Against Talarico

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Nearly half of Generation Z says one political factor is making them less likely to attend church, according to newly released survey data. 
The research found that 48% of Gen Z adults say Christian support for President Donald Trump makes them less likely to attend church. 
Political scientist and religion researcher Ryan Burge highlighted <a href="https://religionnews.com/2026/07/20/half-of-gen-z-says-trump-support-keeps-them-out-of-church/">newly released data</a> from the Billy Graham Center Research Institute examining barriers that keep young adults from embracing Christianity. The survey included 2,365 Gen Z adults ages 18 to 28 and was led by Rick Richardson of Wheaton College. 
Overall, nearly one in five respondents said they &#8220;strongly agreed&#8221; that Christians&#8217; support for the president discourages them from going to church services. 
“So, it’s fair to say young adults are pretty evenly divided on this idea,” Burge and Richardson wrote. “But these results are confounded by a few variables: Younger adults tend to be more left-leaning in their politics, and a significant share of Gen Z claims no religious affiliation, which means a lot of these respondents wouldn’t be going to church much anyway.”
Digging deeper, the survey found a sharp partisan divide. Among Gen Z Democrats, 67% said they &#8220;strongly,&#8221; &#8220;somewhat,&#8221; or &#8220;lightly&#8221; agreed that Christian support for Trump makes them less likely to attend church. Fewer than half of independents shared that view. Republicans, however, broke sharply in the opposite direction, with 74% saying they disagreed. 
About 72% of Gen Z atheists said Christians’ support of Trump has made them less likely to attend a church service. For agnostics, the figure fell slightly lower to 65%. Gen Z Protestants were least likely to feel that way, according to the report, which was highlighted by Religion News Service. 
“But even among Gen Z Christians, there’s a significant share who said Trump made it harder for them to attend at all: 44% of those who identified as a generic Christian, 42% of Catholics and 30% of Protestant young adults said they were turned off by the Christian-Trump alliance,” the report stated. 
White evangelicals have played a pivotal role in Trump&#8217;s electoral success, forming the backbone of the Republican coalition and backing him by overwhelming margins in all three of his presidential campaigns. In 2024, Trump captured 82% of the white evangelical vote, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/exit-polls/national-results/general/president/0">according to exit polls</a>. Catholics also broke decisively in his favor, with nearly 60% backing Trump after <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/exit-polls/president/national-results">narrowly supporting Joe Biden</a> in 2020.
At the same time, other recent surveys suggest religion may be gaining traction among some segments of younger Americans. 
About 42% of men aged 18 to 29 now say religion is “very important” in their lives, up from 28% two years earlier, according to a <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/708410/young-men-religious-young-women.aspx">recent survey from Gallup</a>. The 14-point jump was the largest recorded among any demographic group in the poll’s recent history and returned young men to levels of religiosity not seen since the early 2000s.
Vice President JD Vance has <a href="https://x.com/VP/status/2056135528752234892?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2056135528752234892%7Ctwgr%5Ec3aaf5b9e9b1bcf5d074b80023045f4e297c71f6%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2Fthousands-of-christians-fill-national-mall-for-prayer-service-celebrating-americas-faith-heritage">hailed the numbers</a> as a rebuke to the expert class that has long predicted the demise of American Christianity. 
“Defying predictions, the experts said that religion and faith were dying. Today, a wave of young Americans is returning to the pews, and we know that they’re looking for meaning, for authority, for direction, and of course, for closeness with God,” Vance said. “That should give all of us hope for our future together.” 
<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2026/05/14/how-americans-feel-about-religions-influence-in-government-and-public-life/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email">A Pew Research poll</a> in May showed 37% of U.S. adults believe religion is gaining influence in America, the highest share since 2002.

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Half Of Gen Z Say A Political Factor Is Keeping Them Out Of Church

Gen Z

Vice President JD Vance sat down with prominent Catholic theologian Bishop Robert Barron this week to discuss his new book, “Communion: Finding My Way Back.” The conversation ranged far beyond typical book tour talking points, touching on Vatican diplomacy, artificial intelligence, faith, and family life. 
The most candid moment of the discussion came when Vance reflected on a Vatican meeting that followed his conversation with Pope Francis shortly before the pope&#8217;s death. As he did previously, Vance reiterated that the discussion never moved beyond surface-level diplomatic language.
&#8220;It just felt like [Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Archbishop Paul Gallagher] didn&#8217;t want to move past the diplomatic platitudes,&#8221; Vance told Barron. He recalled Vatican officials telling him the Church &#8220;would really prefer that you show more respect for the dignity of the migrant,” but argued that was something everyone already believed.
&#8220;There is an impulse within the church that is very comfortable in dealing with the highest level of generality because then it&#8217;s not challenging to anybody,&#8221; Vance said, adding that he believes &#8220;the current hierarchy is way too uncomfortable dealing with anything other than abstraction.&#8221;
Vance said he hopes that changes under Pope Leo XIV, whom he described as &#8220;a brilliant guy&#8221; and &#8220;clearly a very holy man.&#8221; He acknowledged the pope would likely criticize some Trump administration policies but said he welcomed the dialogue and didn’t believe the Church and the administration had to agree on everything.
“I think again there is this demand that you treat people with dignity… There&#8217;s also an acceptance, maybe even endorsement, of the fact that nations are allowed to control their borders,&#8221; Vance said. &#8220;How do you balance these things when controlling your borders inevitably leads to law enforcement operations that sometimes can create issues? That&#8217;s the balance that we fundamentally have to strike.”
Much of “Communion” deals with Vance&#8217;s admission that he spent his younger years &#8220;worshipping success&#8221; while attending Yale Law School.
&#8220;The social currency is credential,&#8221; Vance told Barron. &#8220;People don&#8217;t care about what you&#8217;ve achieved. They don&#8217;t care about what you&#8217;re going to achieve. They don&#8217;t care about your family.&#8221; He contrasted that with the community he grew up in, where &#8220;the thing that people were most interested in you is how are your kids doing.&#8221;
“And yet at Yale it was who is going to get ahead in this game of life. And I found that very unsatisfying,” he added.
Vance made the distinction between being ambitious and what he now sees as the disordered pursuit of success. 
&#8220;There&#8217;s the ambition to do something amazing or to do something transformative or to help a lot of people or to build a beautiful building,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But there&#8217;s a separate kind of ambition… which is like the desire to just get ahead for its own sake.&#8221;
Barron and Vance spent a significant portion of the conversation discussing French philosopher René Girard and his theory of mimetic desire, the idea that people desire things because others desire them.
&#8220;Once you see it… it&#8217;s very hard to unsee it,&#8221; Vance said, describing how it happens at home with his kids. &#8220;My 9-year-old will pick up a toy that none of the kids have played with in six months. And instantly, all of them want that toy.&#8221;
Vance argued that social media makes mimetic desire spread faster.
 &#8220;Because it sets that desire aflame and makes it spread so rapidly, it also makes the conflict side of it spread so rapidly,&#8221; he said, recalling watching friends on Facebook &#8220;get into arguments on the internet&#8221; and thinking, &#8220;these are two really lovely human beings that are calling each other these terrible names.&#8221;
The two also discussed Pope Leo XIII&#8217;s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, a foundational document of Catholic social teaching. Vance said the document was impressive for trying to strike a balance between two extremes rather than picking a side.
&#8220;He&#8217;s very worried that if we don&#8217;t strike the right balance between human dignity and prosperity, between workers and capital owners, that it&#8217;s going to inevitably lead to this conflict,&#8221; Vance said of Leo XIII. He argued the encyclical rejects both the Marxist assumption that class conflict is inevitable and the libertarian belief that there is no conflict. 
&#8220;There can be a real compromise,&#8221; he said.
Vance argued that same philosophy also separates President Donald Trump&#8217;s economic approach from the Reagan era. 
&#8220;What President Trump has brought is a recognition… that there is a national and community element to economics,&#8221; Vance said, pointing to shortages of masks and hospital gowns during the COVID pandemic.
Vance described his grandparents as &#8220;classic blue dog Democrats&#8221; and said the biggest difference between their beliefs and today’s Democratic Party is the absence of religion. 
&#8220;I do think that religion itself has become very disfavored among Democratic elites,&#8221; he said.
Later in the interview, Vance described a backstage conversation at a Turning Point USA event in which a young woman told him she and her friends were using ChatGPT to help respond to boys&#8217; text messages. 
&#8220;I realized that the technology that actually brings man and woman together successfully is the church,&#8221; Vance said. &#8220;You have young people who are using ChatGPT and they don&#8217;t want to.&#8221; 
He said the rise of AI presents an opportunity for churches to step in.  
Barron also asked Vance about his prayer life. The vice president admitted that praying consistently with young children at home can be difficult. 
&#8220;Probably 80% of the time I fail on that,&#8221; Vance said. &#8220;Either because bedtime is too chaotic or because I&#8217;m at the White House.&#8221; 
He said part of his return to Christianity involved relearning how to pray after years as an atheist. 
&#8220;It&#8217;s like when I was 17 and I would get on my knees and clasp my hands together, I would know what to say. When I was 28, I didn&#8217;t know what to say anymore.&#8221;
&#8220;You don&#8217;t have to be perfect at it,” he said of praying. &#8220;Try to just do as much as you can.&#8221;
Vance&#8217;s book, “Communion: Finding My Way Back,” is on sale now.

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EXCLUSIVE: JD Vance Tells Bishop Barron What’s Gone Wrong In America

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The state of Texas recently implemented a new education curriculum that includes passages from the Old and New Testaments. Committed secularists, liberal and progressive religious leaders, and even many evangelicals quickly pounced on the inclusion of Hebrew and Christian texts in the state’s educational program.
CNN breathlessly <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/texas-is-poised-to-require-millions-of-students-to-study-bible-stories/ar-AA26zDMV?ocid=BingNewsVerp">warned</a> that “Texas is on the verge of requiring its more than 5 million public school students to study Bible stories, as the state emerges as a leader in a national conservative effort to infuse Christian teachings into American classrooms.” But Texas is not proposing theocracy, or implementing some sort of evangelical proselytization program. It is doing what Americans have done since 1776: ensuring that students have the best and most comprehensive education in order to make them citizens of a republic dedicated to the proposition &#8220;that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.&#8221;
The American republic just had its 250th birthday, and ever since the 13 colonies cast their lot among the independent and sovereign nations of the world, education has formed a vital part of the United States’ republican identity. Certainly, the new American union saw state churches and the oppressive religious structures of the Old World as a cumbersome inheritance they could, and did, cast off. But that was not something the colonists agreed on at the outset of the American Revolution in 1775, nor was it the reason for their Declaration of Independence in 1776.
The late Joyce Appleby, one of the 20th century’s great historians of the era of American independence, noted that even though the elites who began the war for independence believed the revolution was for a regime dedicated to natural rights, most of those same elites “saw few radical implications in this affirmation of natural rights.” John Adams, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and most of the revolutionaries who eventually identified with the Federalist Party “expected continued federance; they supported the authority of patriarchal families, established churches, and legitimate governments.” The Federalists who wrote the United States’ constitution were not secularists, and they were comfortable with the Bible as a essential part of the schooling that made good republican citizens.
Of course, Thomas Jefferson and his Jeffersonian Republicans did work to remove religion from the oversight of government, but not even Jeffersonians believed that the Bible could safely be removed from the sources of knowledge that made educated citizens. And therein lies the basic confusion about what Texas is doing: Secularists, and evangelical Christians, believe learning the Bible is an intrinsically religious act. Reading the Bible is certainly a religious act for Christians and Jews, but the Bible is also a major source of the moral framework of Western Civilization that gives modern Americans the freedoms we enjoy. The reason it is good for Texas’ public school children to know the Bible is the same reason it’s good they know <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-ancient-lesson-christopher-nolan-may-have-completely-stripped-out-of-the-odyssey">Homer</a>; it’s an important part of the Western canon and a vital piece of the catechesis that creates cultural literacy necessary for liberal democracy. 
The Bible is full of the folk tales found in classical Jewish literature; the Old Testament tells of Moses and Pharaoh, David and Goliath, King Solomon’s wisdom, Joshua and the walls of Jericho, Gideon’s small band of warriors, and so much more. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey tell stories of Achilles, Agamemnon, Hector, Paris, Helen, Odysseus, Penelope, and other figures of Greek mythology. The United States too has its folklore: Pecos Bill, Mike Fink, Daniel Boone, David Crockett, John Henry, and Paul Bunyan are the American versions of those Biblical and Greek figures, and they are all — Hebrew, Greek, and American — important for young Americans to know and learn about. The American republic can only have a healthy society if its citizens are educated enough to know not only that Paul Bunyan, Hercules, and Goliath are all big strong men, but that they are each an example of a very different type of big strong man.
Understanding the moral dimensions of the Bible is vital for the formation of a moral republic. But if secularists, and also some evangelicals, have their way, American students in the 21st century will not have the opportunity to learn the great moral stories their parents and grandparents did. Both groups are arguing that the any reading of the Bible must be a religious act and therefore cannot be done by public schools. This proposition is a twin form of religious and secular fundamentalism that says a pupil cannot study the Bible as literature. The Bible is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, sources of moral literature the West has. It would be a grave mistake to rob American students of its moral and literary influence. Texas has decided to give that gift to its public school students. Other states should do the same.
***
Miles Smith IV is an associate professor of history at Hillsdale College.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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The Battle Over America’s Moral Foundation Is Back

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A federal appeals court <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/07/stop-woke-act-appeal-florida-desantis?">struck down</a> a key part of Florida’s law restricting race and gender discussions in public colleges and universities on Tuesday. 
The same people celebrating the ruling are also decrying a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/26/us/texas-schools-bible-curriculum-vote">recent decision</a> by the Texas State Board of Education that allowed biblical passages to appear on a secondary school reading list. The former is academic freedom, and the latter a violation of it. Naturally. 
It’s easy to reconcile these positions by arguing that one is a religious matter and the other is secular. Clearly, it&#8217;s wrong to push one&#8217;s religion in the classroom. Therefore, we can rely on “separation of church and state” to privilege the speech of Florida college professors over that of Texas secondary teachers. 
But for this distinction to matter, we require a clear definition of religion. What constitutes a religious belief as opposed to a philosophical opinion? Certainly not the mention of God — the Buddhist religion is staunchly atheist, yet it is held to the same standards as Christianity or Judaism in academia.
Religions have a number of key components. They tend to include, in one form or another, unquestionable dogmas, heresies, priesthoods, and rituals. 
Let’s consider the famous “is-ought” problem posed by philosopher David Hume. It is impossible to prove that one “ought” to do something using only descriptive statements. 
For example, just because you can prove that stealing from someone will upset him, or damage the legitimacy of anti-theft laws, or cause him to seek vengeance on you does not itself prove an imperative that you shouldn’t steal. Only if you consider his feelings, the legitimacy of the law, or your own safety to be intrinsically valuable does the imperative become binding. And while these considerations may come naturally, they are not the product of unassailable deductive reasoning.
In other words, when put to the incessant questioning of a two-year-old, “but why?” the answer must eventually become “because somebody said so” or “that’s just the way it is.” At least one moral postulate is necessary for the system to function. 
Religion provides a workable axiology. It’s the oldest form of intellectual value theory known to man. 
Everyone worships something; some of us just know it. 
Consider veganism, for example. Committed vegans accept the intrinsic value of all animal life as a moral postulate. They consider eating meat or animal products to be sinful behavior that violates their moral code. Someone else eating meat doesn’t affect vegans in the slightest, yet they consider it an insult to a higher moral truth that they have postulated. 
Imagine a Christian professor objecting in the classroom to the morality of same-sex marriage. He would be violating the separation of church and state. Yet when a professor asserts that veganism is morally superior to meat-eating, this is protected by academic freedom. 
Even the most clinical theoreticians who reject progressive dogmas (which few actually do) often find themselves speaking with reverence of The Science (capital S, of course) and what it tells us. Far be it for us to rise above our stations and question the anointed Experts and their wisdom. 
The problem is not the presence of value judgments in education. Had human education failed to privilege any one way of thinking over any other throughout history, we’d have never left the caves. 
What’s more, absolute neutrality toward social issues is not only a fiction, but it’s an undesirable one. I, for one, would not favor living in a society where children were taught that a set of values that leads them to Hitler is on equal footing with those that lead them to Martin Luther King Jr.
The extent to which religious practices should be allowed into the public sphere is a matter of debate. The trouble comes when educators try to play by a different set of rules by classifying their religious practices as different from religious practices they don’t like. 
While the Florida ruling allows educators to espouse their faith toward race and gender dogmas, the Texas ruling requires that the Bible be taught strictly from a neutral, historical perspective. The double standard here should be painfully obvious. 
The secular religion phenomenon has some clear benefits attached to it as well. It is most often through their religion that people find communities and become motivated to do good for the world. Atheists who wouldn’t be caught dead in a church might still be motivated to form groups and serve their communities by other commitments that fill the void of traditional faith (such as environmentalists cleaning up parks).
After all, the is-ought problem demonstrates why no amount of clinical analysis can tell us what is ultimately worth loving, protecting, or forbidding. If one must reject the Abrahamic faiths, better that he find another outlet through which to do good than abandon good altogether. 
The problem comes when “doing good” crosses the line from picking up trash in your neighborhood into blocking the roads because you didn’t get your way in the presidential election. Secular religions are seldom guided by ancient wisdom; they’re frequently guided by edgy teenagers on social media and ivory tower intellectuals who are safely insulated from the real world. For that reason, they often end up directing people’s religious zeal toward ends that are counterproductive. 
Secular religions, even when they are predicated on principles that nobody disputes, are still systems of faith. Whenever we give educators the power to impart their faith onto their students, we run the risk of indoctrination that the founders feared.
Taking God out of the equation does not erase this concern. If anything, it amplifies it.
***
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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What’s Really Replacing Religion In America’s Schools?

WASHINGTON — As political battles rage ahead of the 2026 midterm elections and Americans prepare to mark the country&#8217;s 250th anniversary, thousands of Catholics gathered in Washington over the weekend for a very different purpose: carrying the Eucharist through the streets of the city while praying for the renewal of America.
The event was part of the <a href="https://www.eucharisticpilgrimage.org/">2026 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage</a>, a 2,000-mile journey stretching from St. Augustine, Florida, to Philadelphia. The theme of the event: &#8220;One Nation Under God.&#8221;
According to organizers, more than 20,000 people have participated in pilgrimage events across the East Coast as the procession has traveled through the original 13 colonies and other historic locations tied to America&#8217;s founding.
The Washington portion of the pilgrimage coincided with the Feast of Corpus Christi and brought large crowds into the streets of the nation&#8217;s capital for public Eucharistic processions, prayer services, and celebrations centered on the Catholic belief that Jesus Christ is truly present in the Eucharist.
Standing before pilgrims at the St. John Paul II National Shrine, National Eucharistic Congress Vice President of Events and Operations Sarah Houde described the theme as &#8220;ultimately a spiritual theme, not a political one.&#8221;
&#8220;As our country marks its 250th anniversary, we are reminded that our rights, dignity, and freedoms come from God, and that all human authority is accountable to a higher authority,&#8221; Houde said.
The pilgrimage arrives at a moment when questions of faith, national identity, and civic unity have become increasingly prominent in American public life. Organizers repeatedly emphasized that the goal was not political advocacy, but spiritual renewal. &#8220;One Nation Under God is not a slogan,&#8221; pilgrimage organizers state on their website. &#8220;It&#8217;s an invitation to realign our lives, communities, and country under the sovereignty of Christ.&#8221;
During a homily delivered before a procession through downtown Washington, Father Charles Trullols, director of the Catholic Information Center, told attendees that the phrase &#8220;Under God&#8221; only remains meaningful if Americans actively place God first in their lives.
&#8220;A nation remains under God only if its people choose to place God first,&#8221; Trullols said. The procession moved through some of the nation&#8217;s most recognizable landmarks, including areas surrounding the White House and the Washington Monument. Pilgrims described the experience as particularly powerful given the nation&#8217;s upcoming semiquincentennial celebration.
Another pilgrim, Mary Carmen Zakrajsek, noted that Catholic history in America predates the country&#8217;s founding by centuries. &#8220;There was a consecration before there was a Constitution,&#8221; she said, referencing the early Catholic presence in what would later become the United States.
One of the most striking moments of the weekend came on Saturday night when clergy elevated the Eucharist near the Washington Monument and offered a blessing over the nation&#8217;s capital.
Several pilgrims reflected on the symbolism of bringing the Eucharist into the nation&#8217;s capital ahead of America&#8217;s 250th anniversary. &#8220;It&#8217;s really meant to be a unifying moment of rededicating our country back to Christ,&#8221; John Paul Flynn, a Northern Virginia native, said. &#8220;To see Christ walking through the streets, especially right next to the White House, going up to the Washington Monument, places that I&#8217;ve been many times throughout my life, it really just creates a newfound love for our country, for our church.&#8221;
The event also highlighted what many Catholic leaders view as a broader religious revival occurring across the United States. Houde pointed to growing participation in Eucharistic processions, increasing devotion to Eucharistic adoration, and rising numbers entering the Catholic Church as evidence that many Americans are searching for something deeper than politics. &#8220;I really do believe that we&#8217;re seeing the fruits,&#8221; Houde said. &#8220;People are hungry for an encounter with Jesus Christ.&#8221;
When asked about tensions between Washington and the Vatican and what side American Catholics should take, organizers declined to enter the political debate.
&#8220;Often we&#8217;re on the side of Christ, right?&#8221; Pilgrim Zachary Dotson responded. &#8220;My advice to every Catholic, to every soul who&#8217;s wondering what&#8217;s the path, what&#8217;s the north star — it&#8217;s Jesus Christ. I would say center yourself on Him, on His teachings, on the Church He established for us.&#8221;
Houde added that Catholics should focus less on political camps and more on prayer. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think we can underestimate the power of praying for our leaders, our political leaders, our nation&#8217;s leaders, our Church leaders, our bishops, the Pope,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Pray for unity, pray for wisdom, pray for guidance.&#8221; That message echoed throughout the pilgrimage. While America&#8217;s political class remains sharply divided, participants repeatedly emphasized prayer, gratitude, and renewal as the proper response to the country&#8217;s 250th anniversary.
The pilgrimage will continue north through historic sites connected to the American founding before concluding in Philadelphia on July 5.
&#8220;Our nation continues to hunger for freedom, unity, healing, and hope,&#8221; Houde said. &#8220;The answer to that hunger is not found in greater division or louder arguments. It is found in a deeper encounter with Jesus Christ.&#8221;

Adobe Express – file

National Eucharistic Pilgrimage Blesses D.C. Ahead Of America 250

America 250

Annunciation Catholic School

The problem of evil is the greatest emotional obstacle to belief in God. It simply doesn’t feel right that God should allow people to suffer, or at least to suffer as much as they do. 
The late atheist philosopher J. L. Mackie, a fellow Aussie, maintained that belief in God was irrational, for if God were all-knowing, He would know that there was evil in the world; if He were all-powerful, He could prevent it; and if He were all-good, He would wish to prevent it. The fact that there is evil in the world proves that God doesn’t exist, or if he does, that He is “impotent, ignorant, or wicked.”
I’ll be honest: when I think about the kinds of evil some people endure, and are enduring even as I speak, I find myself feeling as though an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good God may not exist after all.
But feelings, however powerful, are not arguments. And since we are engaged in philosophy here, we ought to be more concerned with right thinking than with how we are feeling. In fact, when I step back and consider the problem of evil from a rational point of view, rather than simply reacting to it emotionally, I do not think it succeeds as an argument against God’s existence.
Mackie was wrong. The existence of God and the existence of evil aren’t mutually exclusive. And to see why, let’s look at the three attributes of God that Mackie named.
Omnipotence
Omnipotence does not mean the ability to do what is logically impossible because what is logically impossible is nothing at all. God cannot make a square circle, for instance, or a married bachelor, not because his power is limited, but because there is nothing there to be made. Logical contradictions are not difficult tasks awaiting divine power; they are empty descriptions.
As St. Thomas Aquinas put it, &#8220;Whatever implies contradiction does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence, because it cannot have the aspect of possibility. Hence it is better to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them.” It follows then that while God can create beings with free will, capable of choosing between good and evil, He cannot both grant that freedom and simultaneously override it by forcing creatures always to choose the good. A forced choice is not a free one.
C.S. Lewis captured the point succinctly: “If you choose to say, ‘God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,’ you have not succeeded in saying anything about God.” 
Omniscience
If God has infinite knowledge, then he knows many things we don’t. This means that He may, in fact, have good reasons for permitting evil and suffering that seem inexplicable to us. Human beings have a very limited vantage point, and we often lack knowledge of things of true significance. What appears to us to be a tragedy may have effects that bring about great good, and conversely, what appears to us as a good thing may, in the long run, prove harmful.
Consider the analogy of a small child being taken to the doctor for his immunization shots. He knows the needle hurts, and he can’t understand why his own parents are allowing the doctor to cause him such pain. The child is unable to grasp that the inoculations will help prevent the much greater suffering of disease. He’s unable to perceive the greater good. Likewise, we should recognize that a being with more knowledge than us, like God, may have good reasons for things, even pain and suffering, of which we are unaware. He allows evils to exist because of His omniscience, not despite it.
Omnibenevolence
As we think about the goodness of God, we must be careful not to impose on Him our inadequate understanding of what goodness is. In his book “The Problem of Pain,” C. S. Lewis writes:
<blockquote>By the goodness of God we mean nowadays almost exclusively His lovingness; and in this we may be right. And by Love, in this context, most of us mean kindness. . . . What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, “What does it matter so long as they are contented?” We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven, a senile benevolence who, as they say, “liked to see young people enjoying themselves” and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, “a good time was had by all.” 
Furthermore, most theists do not believe that God created us merely for happiness in this life. He created us most importantly for eternal happiness with Him in the next. So, His omnibenevolence should be judged neither by our limited human standards of goodness nor by what happens in this world alone.</blockquote>
Putting all this together, we can recognize that an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent creator might have good reasons for tolerating abuses of human free will that lead to evil and suffering. We may not know what all His reasons are, but we sense the value of freedom, including the value of being able to choose good freely rather than by compulsion. We can see how God&#8217;s power and knowledge can bring good out of evil in ways that our limited minds aren’t able to comprehend. In faith, we can say along with St. Paul, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him” (Rom. 8:28).
Evil: An Argument for God
Evil, rather than disproving God’s existence, can actually point toward it, at least indirectly. To call something evil is not merely to register a feeling of dislike or pain, but to make a moral judgment. And moral judgments presuppose the reality of moral norms that are not reducible to individual preference or social convention. If such objective moral norms exist, then they must have an origin that transcends human opinion.
The theist would say that this origin is God. Moral laws point beyond themselves to a moral lawgiver. Only within such a conceptual framework does it make sense to say that suffering is not merely unfortunate, but unjust, that it cries out for explanation, and that it ought, somehow, to be answered. This does not dissolve the mystery of why an all-good God permits suffering and evil. It doesn’t tell us the meaning, but it does tell us that it’s not meaningless. On this view, God can bring good out of evil, ensure that injustice does not have the final word, and ultimately bring about justice in a way that the bare facts of suffering alone never could.
This is essentially St. Thomas Aquinas’ response to the problem of evil. Citing St. Augustine, he writes: “&#8217;Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil.&#8217; This is part of the infinite goodness of God, that He should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good.”

Silhouette of Man Praying Outside

Why Does God Allow Suffering?

Matt Fradd

Theology

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Something seems to be changing in American culture. Some have described it as a “<a href="https://a.co/d/07YhPOKQ">vibe shift</a>,” like a tangible sensation of spiritual change in the air, perhaps not all that different from the way a sailor might sense when the winds are about to turn. But last month, new data came out that give a specific shape to one key dimension of this shift. The polls point to an unprecedented spiritual reversal happening with young men in America, and one that has turned very suddenly.
Gallup <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/708410/rise-young-men-religiosity-realigns-gender-gaps.aspx">released numbers</a> in April showing that the share of American men ages 18 to 29 who say religion is “very important to them” jumped from 28% to 42% between 2023 and 2025. That&#8217;s a 14-point swing in two years — a 50% proportional increase, and the single largest shift in our lifetime on how young men relate to religion. This vibe shift erased a nearly 25-year decline in religious interest in just two years.
While the change is statistically unprecedented, if you have been watching the culture rather than the polls, none of this should surprise you. The polls are just catching up.
The statistical decline of traditional religious participation and the rise of those who claim to believe in “nothing at all” began in the mid-1990s. The New Atheist decade that followed made a specific wager: Strip away “superstitious” beliefs of our bygone religious past, and civilization will march onward in an unfettered path of progress. But by the 2010s, as we moved into an era of intense cultural tumult dubbed the “Great Awokening,” it was obvious we were not getting that promised utopian outcome from our anti-religious experiment.
What we got instead was a “meaning crisis” and a generation of young men who grew up feeling the weight of hopelessness. They watched as deaths of despair skyrocketed, institutional trust declined, and civilization slowly descended into ruin as Marxist and postmodern ideologies rushed to fill the religious vacuum.
They were handed a world stripped of the timeless guiding stories upon which everything good in American culture had been built, and they were told that all guiding stories — including the stories of scripture — were just propaganda power plays or backwards superstitions. The colloquial phrase for the result was simply “the young men are not okay.”
What the data now suggest is that a critical mass of young men have decided this anti-God experiment has run long enough. Young men are tired of not being okay.
The early signals were everywhere. Jordan Peterson sold out theaters lecturing on Bible stories with millions more watching on YouTube, hungry for someone to show them a story that could give their lives meaningful direction. Tom Holland’s &#8220;Dominion&#8221; became the book that thoughtful young men discussed in dorm rooms, with its thesis that the moral foundations of the modern West — human dignity, universal rights, concern for the downtrodden — is Christianity all the way down, whether we remember it or not. Justin Brierley, who spent 15 years hosting debates between Christians and the New Atheists, began to notice that young men weren’t listening to the New Atheists anymore. He covered the precipitous decline of New Atheism’s influence in &#8220;The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God.&#8221;
If anyone has been paying attention to the most popular podcaster on the planet, they’d notice a similar religious arc happening with Joe Rogan. Not that long ago, Rogan sounded like the average red-blooded American male of the old cultural moment: bemused by traditional religion and comfortable with the assumption that faith was something smart people had outgrown. In the last several years, his posture has shifted so visibly it has become a running theme of his show. Guest after guest, from biblical scholars such as Wesley Huff to Christ-curious comedians, get invited to wrestle seriously with the question of God rather than brush it aside. In 2025, Rogan himself started attending church, something <a href="https://x.com/paulanleitner/status/1874246583820157084?s=61&amp;t=GEWkhsehIN24AI-EHnUXaQ">I predicted</a> would happen in 2024. 
There were other signs in pop culture that, in strange ways, hinted at a coming spiritual turn. In late 2023, young men started playing old Creed songs again without an ounce of cynical irony — songs drenched in a sincere, hungry religiosity the 2000s had trained everyone to mock. In 2024, Creed had its highest-grossing year as a band, propelled primarily by young men who were too young to listen to the band&#8217;s religiously tinged albums when they first came out.
The popular stories that filled our screens began to reflect the ache men had for a positive vision of male heroism rooted in sacrificial love and the pursuit of something bigger than oneself. They made &#8220;Top Gun: Maverick&#8221; and &#8220;F1&#8243; enormous hits — films that refuse the postmodern move of telling you the male hero is an oppressive force of the patriarchy. More recently, they embraced &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hollywood-makes-a-story-where-doing-the-right-thing-still-matters">A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms</a>,&#8221; a story about an earnest young man who wants, with his whole heart, to be genuinely good in a franchise famous for insisting that wanting to be good is how you get killed. They cheered for &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ryan-gosling-breathes-new-life-into-a-tired-genre-with-project-hail-mary">Project Hail Mary</a>,&#8221; whose “hopecore” message is built on a man named Grace laying down his life for the sake of the world.
None of these pop culture signposts are as explicitly “religious” as a Sunday school lesson, but what do they all have in common? They show that young men are hungry for hope, meaning, and purpose in their lives. They reflect a shift from the spiritual “closedness” of the last two decades to a fresh spiritual openness, and a growing appetite for timeless religious themes of virtue, sacrifice, and the quest for a higher purpose.
Is this a full-blown religious revival? Revival probably isn’t the best word to describe what’s happened. Young men’s interest in traditional religion has spiked, and some have started to fill the church pews. I suspect more will follow. What it does point to should be encouraging for anyone who cares about the future of America.
Young men are increasingly willing, in numbers now measurable, to entertain the possibility that the religious wisdom we had discarded was something we needed, but did not see the need for until we tried to live without it.
For 25 years, the trend line pointed in one direction, and even some of the most devoted church-going observers assumed it would keep tailing downward. It did not. It broke. In the span of a few short years, a generation of young men looked around at the trajectory of an anti-God culture and, with something like collective intuition, decided they had had enough.
***
Paul Anleitner is a cultural theologian whose work focuses on the role of culture and story in our quest for meaning. He is the author of “Based on a True Story: Vibe Shifts, the End of Deconstruction, and the Reboot of Meaning.”

Young Men Are Finding Their Way Back To Something The Culture Tried To Replace

Across the board, trust in our institutions in the United States is at an all-time low.
Trust in the media is at an all-time low. Trust in church is at an all-time low. Trust in the scientific establishment is at an all-time low. Trust in government is at an all-time low. And, of course, trust in academia is at an all-time low.
Because of our lack of trust in institutions, Americans also mistrust one another.
You might think that it would be the opposite, that we mistrust one another, and therefore we mistrust our institutions.
That’s not the case. Our institutions shape us, and the way that we interact with the world is through the mechanism of institutions.
If you grew up in a religious community, going to church helped shape you. The rules of the church helped shape you. The people you spent time with shaped you. The institution of your family shaped you. Your school or university shaped you. 
As we lose faith in all of those institutions to shape us, we are incapable of coming together anymore.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ben-shapiro-ep-2416-2-university-of-austin-speech"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957 aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Institutions tend to foster a common orientation, which is why Alexis de Tocqueville was such a big fan of them. It&#8217;s why in Democracy in America, he made the suggestion that one of the things that made America so different from all other countries was the plethora of social institutions in which Americans were enmeshed. He noted that in most other countries, people had formal institutions that they were forced to interact with, but in America, everybody was a member of a social institution or many social institutions — and that created this extraordinary social fabric that was durable, that allowed for innovation, that allowed for freedom. 
Without trust, there can&#8217;t be freedom at all. If the institutions that provide the shaping function that set the rules for our lives, the way we interact with the world, die, so does the social fabric. And then, when the social fabric dies, we stop attributing decent motivation to each other.
Instead, we start engaging in what the philosopher Alistair MacIntyre called “emotivism”: the belief that everybody except for you is motivated by something nefarious. Instead of having a political conversation, what you do is attribute a motive to the person&#8217;s policy.
You shouldn&#8217;t be attributing motivations to other people unless you have good evidence that their motivation is malign.
But that&#8217;s what we jump to when there is no trust.
I trust my wife. I&#8217;m not worried that when she criticizes me, it&#8217;s coming from a terrible place. I trust the people that I go to synagogue with. If they have a critique or we have a disagreement, I don&#8217;t immediately jump to, “They do it because they hate me.”
“You&#8217;re doing it because you hate me” is the death of politics, because if that&#8217;s the case, then how exactly are we supposed to live together and work together and create policy together?
Religious institutions used to be truth-making institutions, but the question of whether those institutions ought to pursue truth has been supplanted by the idea that they ought to do politics. In many cases, they have become progressive bastions where people go to eat pizza and play guitar rather than unite with some eternal value.
That is why many people don&#8217;t attend anymore. Why go there when you can go to a sports event instead?
We saw the scientific establishment move from evidence to narrative, most obviously during COVID. The result for an enormous number of people was to completely discard science in favor of nonsense that has zero evidence to back it.
The slide from truth to narrative is almost invariably followed by a slide from narrative to conspiracism or nonsense.
The move from seeking the truth at universities to “We are going to engineer a population of discontented people who believe that the system must be turned on its ear” led people to stop trusting the universities.
The American government was built to pursue one fundamental principle above all: epistemic humility, the idea that you might not be correct.
If you think you&#8217;re always correct, you might want to be a tyrant. 
Humility with regard to other people in your society, the idea that maybe they&#8217;re right on occasion, maybe you&#8217;re wrong on occasion, has to be rooted in trust of our fellow citizens.
We have checks and balances in the United States government to prevent it from swinging side to side to stop radical things from happening. That is legitimately the point of the American government. Unless we have a very broad agreement on something, it should not happen. That is why we have a bicameral legislature. It is why we have three branches of government.
But when that wears away, when we hate each other, what we end up with is a battle to the death in the blood sport of politics.
We get angry at the checks and balances because it&#8217;s not possible that people who oppose me are correct; those people are malign. “Those people want bad things to happen to me and to my family, and so I&#8217;m going to grab the government. I&#8217;m going to kill the filibuster. I&#8217;m gonna stack the Supreme Court. I&#8217;m going to add states willy-nilly to the United States Senate, and then I&#8217;m just going to run right over everybody.”
In the absence of rebuilding trust in the institutions, you end up with a war of all against all on the governmental level. And things will not go well.
When you get rid of the fundamental epistemic humility of the government, checks and balances give way to a centralized tyranny.
If you don&#8217;t trust your neighbor and you think your neighbor is taking advantage of you, you might say that the government should just do what you want it to do. Grab that brass ring and do exactly what you want with that power.
In order for a solid debate to take place, there must be a fundamental sharing of values and rules of the road. There ought not to be debate about fundamental propositions, because if you are having to debate individual value — such as the idea that individual human beings have individual worth — you&#8217;re arguing with something outside the system.
If you have to argue with somebody about the worthiness of truth, that is not an argument that can ever be won, because truth itself is an assumed value.
This is why, in the Declaration of Independence, when the Founders said that there are certain rights that are self-evident, they didn&#8217;t mean that they prove themselves. They mean that these are the fundamental building blocks of a society. And if you question them, the society crumbles.
Only a carefully cultivated moral culture that values truth and evidence and logic and moral decency, that actually protects free speech and property rights and equal rights under the law, is capable of restoring our institutions.
We shouldn&#8217;t be debating about fundamental moral matters, things like “lying is wrong.” If I have to debate you about that, there&#8217;s no debate.
Individual human beings have moral worth, and their autonomy has moral value.
Those are the values that we begin with, and those are the values that need to be embodied in institutions.

Rotten_Core

The Rot Spreading Through America’s Core

When A Nation Forgets Its Foundations

Ben Shapiro

Church

Family Values

Federal Government

Founding Fathers

Opinion

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
When news broke last month that a Minnesota district would include Islamic prayer rooms in its new high school buildings, many commenters drew the wrong conclusion. Some expressed legitimate concerns about the scale of Muslim migration, but others seemed committed to accusing the district of hypocrisy.
“Separation of Church and State for 1 religion only it appears,” one X user <a href="https://x.com/lanedrivinsmoke/status/2046246050508263593?s=46">snarked</a>.
To which another <a href="https://x.com/jacktomczak/status/2046275017302757521?s=46">replied</a>, “What do you mean? Christian and Jewish kids can use this room too.”
They both have a point. The blueprints include foot-washing stations for Islamic ritual ablutions, which makes it pretty obvious which religion these <a href="https://alphanews.org/plans-for-prayer-room-and-foot-washing-station-at-minnesota-schools-go-viral/">prayer rooms</a> are designed to serve. At the same time, there’s nothing stopping Christian students from using these rooms. They just won’t do it. And that should set off alarm bells for Christians.
A quick example should suffice to illustrate what I mean. One day last spring, when I was between jobs working as a substitute teacher at a local public middle school, a few Muslim students approached my desk and let me know they’d be leaving class to pray in a room set aside for that purpose.
A few minutes later, the conclave in Rome elected Cardinal Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope. I’d been monitoring the election closely (<a href="https://spectator.com/article/betting-on-a-papal-conclave-felt-mildly-degenerate/?edition=us">because I had money on it</a>), so I saw the news right away and decided to share it with my students, of whom a plurality, if not a majority, were Hispanic. 
And because I still had the prayer room on my mind, I mentioned that I’d be happy to let any Catholics among them leave class briefly to pray for their new pope. In response, I got nothing but blank stares.
I realize this is a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison. The obligation to pray at five set times each day is one of the five pillars of Islam. There’s no comparable Catholic tradition of laypeople interrupting their day to pray for a newly elected pope (or for any other reason).
But maybe that’s the problem.
American Christianity has become invisible in the public square. We don’t wear headscarves, grow forelocks, carry <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirpan">special daggers</a>, or stop what we’re doing to flop down on prayer rugs. Our Sabbath-keeping is a joke compared to how the Jews do it.
We don’t even fast much anymore. In 1966, U.S. Catholic bishops “ended the obligation to abstain from meat on the Fridays outside of Lent” as long as “some other form of penance or work of charity was done,” the <a href="https://dio.org/catholic-times/hey-father-what-is-the-history-of-no-meat-on-friday/">Catholic Times explains</a>. That leaves a grand total of seven mandatory meatless days per year. Whoop-dee-doo.
Evangelical Protestants, meanwhile, tend to define their faith as a liberation from man-made rituals and religious obligations. They might endorse fasting as a valuable personal discipline, but the idea of requiring everyone to fast in the same ways on the same days sounds too much like works-based righteousness.
Why Christianity has adapted itself to secularism more fully than other religions is a tricky question. Tom Holland addresses it at length in his book &#8220;Dominion,&#8221; but the short answer is that this transformation is the product of the Christian West’s unique history and of Christianity’s own internal logic.
The reasons might be complex, but the negative consequences are obvious. 
First, Christians lose cultural influence. A religion that’s willing to make demands on secular institutions can often extract concessions. Muslims get foot-washing stations in public schools. Jews get “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat_elevator">sabbath elevators</a>” that stop automatically on every floor so they don’t have to break their law by pushing an electronic button. <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/features/how-a-catholic-businessman-put-the-filet-o-fish-on-the-mcdonald-s-menu?amp">Catholics got the Filet-O-Fish</a>, but that was back in 1963. Today, with the fasting rules relaxed, McDonald’s would have little reason to introduce it.
Second, Christians internalize the idea that there’s nothing different about them. This is especially true during adolescence, the stage when <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9167890/">peers become a bigger influence than parents</a>. If faith is part of a tween&#8217;s home life but doesn&#8217;t matter at school, it will naturally become less important to him over time.
Third, non-religious people come to regard Christianity as thin and ephemeral, something anyone can simply “<a href="https://www.wishtv.com/news/national/taylor-swift-calls-gop-sen-marsha-blackburn-trump-in-a-wig-in-new-documentary/">identify as</a>” without any skin in the game. Remember, these &#8220;nones&#8221; don’t see what happens at mass or mosque. They’ve watched their Muslim friends, even those for whom religion is mostly cultural, suffer through Ramadan fasts. But what do their Christian friends do? Try to be nice to people? That’s fine as far as it goes, but it doesn’t exactly scream “<a href="https://biblehub.com/john/1-46.htm">come and see</a>.”
Fortunately, I have a solution: Catholics should use the noon <a href="https://www.usccb.org/prayers/angelus">Angelus</a> as a ministry to members of their church who attend public schools. This medieval devotion consists of ringing a bell, followed by a few scripture verses commemorating the Annunciation and a few Hail Marys. The whole thing takes about two minutes.
Implementing the Angelus in public schools would be easy. All you’d need is a bell, a parent, or a mature student to lead the prayers, and an empty room reserved from 11:55 to 12:05. If the school won’t give you a room, sue them. You’ll win.
For Protestants, a shortened version of <a href="http://bcp2019.anglicanchurch.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/07-Midday-Prayer.pdf">the midday prayer service from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer</a> would be just as workable.
It is, of course, possible that some kids would attend these services just to get out of class. But that’s a feature, not a bug. 
Carving out space for Christian worship in public schools would strengthen the faith of devout students, but it would also give nominal adherents a stronger sense of themselves as Christians while showing non-believers that Christianity is a religion worth taking seriously.
The reason Muslims have public school prayer rooms and we don’t isn’t because administrators favor Muslims over Christians (though I’m sure they often do). It’s because Muslims demand them and we don’t. It’s time for that to change.
***
Grayson Quay is the author of &#8220;The Transhumanist Temptation&#8221; and a former editor at the Daily Caller.

GettyImages-682359680

Why Public Schools Are Making Space For Faith And Christians Aren’t Part Of It

In a move that underscores a commitment to religious freedom and moral accountability, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Tuesday that they have successfully replaced a statue of Jesus in the southern Lebanese village of Debel. The original religious monument had been damaged by a lone Israeli soldier, sparking immediate condemnation from Israel’s military leadership and a swift effort to make amends.
The IDF’s Northern Command spearheaded the restoration, working in &#8220;full coordination&#8221; with the local Christian community to ensure the sacred symbol was replaced.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
A short while ago, in full coordination with the local community of Debel in southern Lebanon, the damaged statue was replaced by IDF troops. The Northern Command worked to coordinate the replacement of the statue from the moment it received the report of the incident.
The IDF… <a href="https://t.co/nGh1s1iia1">pic.twitter.com/nGh1s1iia1</a>
&mdash; Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) <a href="https://twitter.com/IDF/status/2046597268904558765?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 21, 2026</a></blockquote>
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In a <a href="https://x.com/IDF/status/2046589834341351758">statement</a> released on X, the IDF expressed &#8220;deep regret&#8221; over the incident, characterizing the destruction as a &#8220;moral failure&#8221; that contradicts the fundamental values of the Jewish state and its military.
Beyond merely replacing the physical property, Israel took decisive disciplinary action to uphold its standards of conduct. The soldier who damaged the statue and the individual who filmed the act have both been removed from combat duty and sentenced to 30 days of military detention. Furthermore, the remaining troops present during the incident have been summoned for clarification discussions, with the Chief of the General Staff reinforcing that such behavior &#8220;far exceeds any acceptable standard.&#8221;
This swift restorative justice stands in stark contrast to the treatment of Christian institutions in many neighboring Muslim and Arab states. While Israel officially recognizes ten Christian denominations and grants them internal autonomy, other nations in the region continue to enforce systemic prohibitions. In Saudi Arabia, the construction of public Christian churches remains strictly forbidden under a rigid interpretation of Islamic law. In Somalia and Yemen, open Christian worship is virtually non-existent, often carrying the threat of execution by extremist groups like al-Shabaab or the Houthis.
The honorable conduct displayed in Debel also highlights a growing global disparity in religious safety. While Israel took immediate steps to punish its own for a single act of vandalism, Christian communities elsewhere face far more lethal threats. In Nigeria, militant groups like Boko Haram and ISWAP continue to bomb and burn churches, with over 3,400 Christians killed in 2025 alone. Similarly, in Pakistan, &#8220;mob justice&#8221; frequently leads to the destruction of dozens of churches over mere rumors of blasphemy.
By taking responsibility for the actions of a few and working with Lebanese locals to restore their religious heritage, Israel has demonstrated a Western-style tolerance that remains rare in the Middle East. The IDF has pledged to reinforce procedures regarding religious symbols for all troops, ensuring that the protection of faith remains a cornerstone of its operational ethics.

Silhouette of soldier saluting with Israel flag on background of sunrise or sunset. Armed forces of Israel concept

After Jesus Statue Is Vandalized, Israel Takes Swift Action

Global Politics

Israel

Israel Defense Forces (IDF)

Lebanon

Statues

World

President Donald Trump continued his ongoing feud with Pope Leo XIV this week, posing a pair of pointed questions about the Vatican’s opposition to the war in Iran in what marks another sharp rhetorical blow.
In a Monday <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/04/20/us-news/trump-reveals-his-2-burning-iran-questions-for-pope-leo-after-pontiffs-ongoing-opposition-to-war/">interview</a> with the New York Post, Trump challenged the pope directly: “Why does the pope think it is fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon and to kill 42,000 unarmed protesters?” — though the pope has not publicly expressed support for Iran obtaining nuclear weapons or committing violence against protesters. Trump framed the conflict as a necessary step to prevent long-term catastrophe, adding, “You can’t allow them to have a nuclear weapon because they will use it and millions of people will be dead, including Italians and Catholics around the world.”
The comments are the latest flashpoint in a weeks-long back-and-forth that has steadily intensified as the Iran conflict has unfolded. Pope Leo has repeatedly condemned the operation, calling for restraint and urging an end to what he described as the “madness of war.” 
During a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/catholic-bishops-echo-pope-blast-trump-for-war-against-iran">Palm Sunday Mass</a>, the pope warned against leaders who pursue armed conflict with “arrogance,” adding that God “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.” While he did not name Trump, the remarks were widely interpreted as a direct rebuke of the U.S.-led campaign.
Trump has rejected that framing, arguing that the administration’s actions are rooted in deterrence rather than escalation. He has publicly dismissed the pontiff’s position as naïve and “<a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-accuses-pope-leo-being-terrible-foreign-policy-over-pontiffs-anti-war-comments">terrible for foreign policy</a>,” maintaining that allowing Iran to continue its nuclear program would invite far greater destruction. 
“This is one of the most important wars,” Trump said, reiterating his view that crippling Iran’s military and enrichment capabilities is essential to preventing a wider conflict.
The broader context of the spat reflects two fundamentally different frameworks for approaching the conflict: The Vatican has emphasized humanitarian concerns, the risk of escalation, and the moral cost of war, consistently calling for de-escalation and dialogue. Trump, by contrast, has framed the conflict in terms of necessity and prevention, arguing that failing to act decisively now would lead to far greater loss of life later.
Some actions by the Trump administration have also drawn attention for their religious framing.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered a prayer at the Pentagon on March 25 invoking the name of Jesus Christ in support of Operation Epic Fury, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/26/hegseth-prayer-violence-pentagon">asking</a> that U.S. forces deliver “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.” 
Then earlier this month, Trump posted — <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-slammed-for-outrageous-post-depicting-himself-as-jesus-christ">and later deleted</a> — an image to Truth Social that depicted him as Jesus Christ. The president later said he believed the image portrayed him as a doctor, but the episode has only added more layers of complexity to an already fraught relationship with the head of the Catholic Church.
The Vatican has not yet responded to Trump’s latest remarks, but, much to the chagrin of ​​Republican Catholics, there is little indication the temperature will drop anytime soon.

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