Today's Page · Thursday, June 25, 2026

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When Algorithms Govern the Soul: China's AI Religious Surveillance and the Catholic Vision of Human Dignity
China's National Religious Affairs Administration is deploying generative AI to filter religious content across social media, targeting any expression that deviates from state-approved doctrine. This development arrives as Pope Leo XIV's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas reframes the global conversation about technology, conscience, and the irreducible dignity of the human person. The contrast is both geopolitically and anthropologically clarifying.
Both Parents Work. Can the Children Still Attach?
A parent kisses their child goodbye at 7 a.m. and spends the commute wondering whether they are enough. The research on attachment, read carefully, is more forgiving than the guilt tends to be — and more demanding in the right places. This Question to the Editor explores that phenomenon.
Yabba-Dabba-Do We Need Counseling? The Flintstones and the Case for Getting Help
Fred and Wilma Flintstone have been married for six decades of reruns, and they still haven't worked out the bowling nights. A satirical look at Bedrock's most famous couple reveals something true about every marriage: the strongest ones are built by people willing to ask for outside help.
charity
When Shepherds Enter the Storm: What Cardinal Pizzaballa's Gaza Visit Reveals About Presence as Healing
On June 22, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa and Orthodox Patriarch Theophilus III entered the Gaza Strip together, not as diplomats, but as shepherds. Their visit to the Holy Family parish — Gaza's only Catholic church — offers a case study in how embodied pastoral presence functions as psychological and spiritual healing for communities under chronic trauma. For the broader Church, the visit also raises an urgent practical question: what does accompaniment require when the shepherds cannot always be there in person?
Groomed for the Grave: What Jean Marie Davis's Story Reveals About How Trafficking Actually Works and How the Cycle was Broken
Jean Marie Davis was groomed for sexual exploitation starting at age two, trafficked across 33 states, and turned away by 27 shelters before one woman said yes. Her testimony dismantles the kidnapping myth that keeps most trafficking invisible, and it points toward what genuine rescue actually requires.

Canada Deems Quoting Bible in Good Faith "Hate Speech":Bill C-9 and the Psychological Cost of Religious Silencing

Canada's Bill C-9 removes a longstanding criminal code protection for the good-faith expression of scriptural belief, creating legal ambiguity that reaches well beyond courtrooms. The legislation's most underexamined consequence is the psychological and moral toll it places on believers who now face a structured choice between authentic religious expression and legal safety. That toll is measurable, and it falls unevenly on those whose faith is most integrated into their sense of self.

Jun 23, 2026 · 7 min read

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hope

When Conscience Meets the Couch: The Frank Canepa Case and What It Means for Faith-Integrated Counseling

Oregon's withdrawal of disciplinary action against Catholic counselor Frank Canepa, prompted by a landmark 8-1 Supreme Court ruling, reopens a foundational question in mental health practice: can a counselor's moral convictions coexist with professional ethics? The answer matters enormously for the future of faith-integrated care.

charity

When Bishops Speak for the Vulnerable: The Catholic Case for Haitian TPS and Human Dignity

Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami and the bishops of Ohio are calling on the U.S. Senate to extend Temporary Protected Status for more than 350,000 Haitians living legally in the United States. Their argument draws on the Catholic understanding of the human person to address what displacement does to families, communities, and psychological wellbeing. The case reaches beyond policy debate into the relational conditions that make human flourishing possible.

justice commitment

When Marriages Grow Old but Not Deep: Understanding the Gray Divorce Wave

Gray divorce rates have doubled since the 1990s, with older adults leaving marriages they describe as 'empty shells.' A Catholic Christian understanding of love, commitment, and lifelong growth offers both an honest diagnosis and a hopeful path forward for couples navigating the later seasons of marriage.

Book reviews

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The Saint Who Had Nothing and Was Whole: What Benedict Joseph Labre Teaches About Psychological Resilience

Benedict Joseph Labre rejected every institutional framework of his era, yet those who encountered him in Rome described a man of unusual tranquility and presence. His story challenges assumptions about what stability, identity, and wellbeing actually require. The Catholic understanding of the person may be the only lens that makes him fully legible.

The Whole Person Tastes: What Multisensory Science Reveals About Embodied Experience

Charles Spence's research at Oxford demonstrates that flavor is never just a chemical event on the tongue — it is assembled from sound, color, touch, memory, and environment. For Catholic Christian anthropology, this is not a curiosity but a confirmation: the human person is a unified body-soul composite whose knowing begins in the senses. The implications reach from how we eat to how we pray.

A Portrait of the Contemporary Convert: Recent Polling Reveals Conversion Motivations

A 2026 nationwide study of 2,127 Catholic converts found that 85% entered the Church seeking closeness with God, 77% sought growth in virtue, and 72% named interior peace as a primary motivation. The data reframe conversion as a psychological and spiritual phenomenon rooted in the human person's deepest longings, with direct implications for Catholic anthropology and mental health.

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Today's roundup

Blood Pressure Recalls, Mortality Salience, and the Body We Inhabit — June 23, 2026

A chlorthalidone recall, the death of Clive Davis, and lingering Father's Day grief threads are converging into a week of mortality salience and bodily vulnerability. Clinicians should expect clients carrying diffuse, unnamed heaviness rooted in both public events and private loss. The CCMMP framework offers precise pastoral and clinical footholds.

Top stories

When Algorithms Govern the Soul: China's AI Religious Surveillance and the Catholic Vision of Human Dignity

Both Parents Work. Can the Children Still Attach?

Yabba-Dabba-Do We Need Counseling? The Flintstones and the Case for Getting Help

When Shepherds Enter the Storm: What Cardinal Pizzaballa's Gaza Visit Reveals About Presence as Healing

Groomed for the Grave: What Jean Marie Davis's Story Reveals About How Trafficking Actually Works and How the Cycle was Broken

Canada Deems Quoting Bible in Good Faith "Hate Speech":Bill C-9 and the Psychological Cost of Religious Silencing

More to read

When Waiting Saves Lives: Reflection, Decision-Making, and Ireland's Abortion Debate

Borrowed Fruit: On the Ethics We Inherited and the Soil We Abandoned

Religious Freedom Week and the Psychology of Living an Integrated Life

Top stories

When Algorithms Govern the Soul: China's AI Religious Surveillance and the Catholic Vision of Human Dignity

Both Parents Work. Can the Children Still Attach?

Yabba-Dabba-Do We Need Counseling? The Flintstones and the Case for Getting Help

When Shepherds Enter the Storm: What Cardinal Pizzaballa's Gaza Visit Reveals About Presence as Healing

Groomed for the Grave: What Jean Marie Davis's Story Reveals About How Trafficking Actually Works and How the Cycle was Broken

Latest

When Conscience Meets the Couch: The Frank Canepa Case and What It Means for Faith-Integrated Counseling

When Bishops Speak for the Vulnerable: The Catholic Case for Haitian TPS and Human Dignity

When Marriages Grow Old but Not Deep: Understanding the Gray Divorce Wave

Book reviews

Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith

Pensées Bundle: Pensées and Pascal's Prayers

Your Valentine

The Glories of the Sacred Heart

The Sacrament of Penance

More from today

The Saint Who Had Nothing and Was Whole: What Benedict Joseph Labre Teaches About Psychological Resilience

The Whole Person Tastes: What Multisensory Science Reveals About Embodied Experience

A Portrait of the Contemporary Convert: Recent Polling Reveals Conversion Motivations

Trending Now

Blood Pressure Recalls, Mortality Salience, and the Body We Inhabit — June 23, 2026

Between Waking and Dreaming: Consciousness, Loss, and the Search for Inner Ground — June 19, 2026

The Inner Life Under Economic Pressure: Anxiety, Self-Regulation, and the Search for Stability — June 18, 2026

Grief, Anger, Love, and Longing: What People Are Searching For — June 12, 2026