My mother converted when I was 16. She was the driving force behind religion in our family. So, I'm sure I was heavily influenced by that. But, I also was, and still am, convinced by the Catholic churches historical claims to represent the continuity with the early Church that other forms of Western Christianity lack.

Many things about American life, that even secular people consider good, have flowed from the presence of a robust, resilient institutional Christianity.

You start reading C.S. Lewis, then you’re reading G.K. Chesterton, then you’re a Catholic.

I think what you see a lot of in American religion, even in areas of American Christianity that don't go all the way with Osteen to the idea that God wants you to have this big house and so on, the nature of American religion right now, the fact that it is so non-denominational and post-denominational, the most successful churches have to be run more like businesses than ever before. I think that just exposes Christians to a constant temptation to think about the ministry more as a business than they sometimes should.

I think that secular liberals need to recognize that they are still, often, hanging their worldview on what are metaphysical ideas.

No one doubts that pure libertarianism is simple, but that's just why it remains on the ideological fringe - because it boils down the most difficult questions in human affairs to a simple equation, a What Would the Market Do bumper sticker.

The idea of a post-religious society is a fantasy, ultimately. Human beings are, by nature, religious in various ways.