In the service of the People of God, St. John Paul II was the Pope of the family. Throughout his life, he incessantly pointed out to the Church and to society the need to protect and promote the family as the vital cell of humanity. His pontificate has distinguished itself in its commitment to make people understand the nature and meaning of the family as a domestic Church, where spouses are called to form a community of persons, growing continually through daily fidelity to the marriage promise of total mutual self-giving. The magisterium of this great pontiff on family issues represents a sure point of reference for finding concrete solutions to the many difficulties and countless challenges that families have to face in our day.” For the Polish pope, the communion of the family was characterized not only by unity, but also by its indissolubility, and within this communion, one understands the nature and meaning of the family as the domestic Church. The family, therefore, realizing itself, that is, becoming an authentic community of persons united in God, is the revelation and specific realization of the community of the Church.” In the apostolic exhortation “Familiaris Consortio,” St. John Paul II highlighted the “social” task given to the family: “The family is the privileged environment where each person learns to give and receive love and it is a necessary good for peoples, an indispensable foundation for society and a great treasure of spouses throughout their lives.” In today’s world there are increasing attacks on the institution of the family. Modernity proposes a life without commitments, without fundamental principles and values derived from divine and natural law. A sign of this is the many divorces and cohabitations, and the consequent difficulties in raising children. Educating the younger generations to live the values is an enormous challenge today. Children—the future of society and of the whole world—learn in the family the first lessons of interpersonal coexistence, mutual respect and solidarity, which are the basis of peaceful coexistence between individuals, peoples, and entire nations. Alongside the religious dimension of the family, there is also a social dimension and today, unfortunately, we are witnessing the spread of distorted and very dangerous visions, fueled by relativistic ideologies, pervasively spread by the media. It is exactly because of this that here at The Heritage Foundation we worked hard on producing a new report arguing that American families are in crisis (declining birth and marriage rates, especially) and strengthening marriage and family formation should be a core focus of federal policy. The question that will determine the course of America’s future is: what happens to a nation when its citizens largely stop having children? The only way for America to thrive in the future is to rebuild the family and revive the institution of marriage. “The families of our time need to get back on track! They must follow Christ!” St. John Paul II used to say. In these words, we feel a strength and a conviction that cannot leave us indifferent and pushes us not to give up. Power will do everything to silence our voice, but we are certain that the commitment that we sow today in the hardened furrows of history will sprout and bear abundant fruit. The family, St. John Paul II repeated incessantly, is the “hope of humanity,” because in it, life is welcomed, from its conception to its natural end.It’s undeniable that the future of humanity passes through the family. It is therefore indispensable and urgent that every person of goodwill commit himself to saving and promoting the values and needs of the family.  Christians who fear of being labeled as enemies of humanity because they proclaim the truth, bow to diplomatic compromises with the world and distort the sacramental character of the Church. Saint Pope John Paul II wrote this beautiful prayer: Lord God, from You every family in Heaven and on earth takes its name. Father, You are love and life. Through Your Son, Jesus Christ, born of woman, and through the Holy Spirit, the fountain of divine charity, grant that every family on earth may become for each successive generation a true shrine of life and love. Grant that Your grace may guide the thoughts and actions of husbands and wives for the good of their families and of all the families in the world. Grant that the young may find in the family solid support for their human dignity and for their growth in truth and love. Grant that love, strengthened by the grace of the sacrament of marriage, may prove mightier than all the weaknesses and trials through which our families sometimes pass. Through the intercession of the Holy Family of Nazareth, grant that the Church may fruitfully carry out her worldwide mission in the family and through the family. We ask this of You, Who is life, truth and love with the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. May we all come together today reciting this powerful prayer, remembering ultimately what family is all about: Forget About Me I Love You! The post Saint Pope John Paul II Gave Us Timeless Lessons About Family appeared first on The Daily Signal.

There is a growing sense of frustration coursing through American politics, and it is no longer confined to one party or ideology. That frustration has real roots. Major institutions badly damaged their credibility during the COVID-19 pandemic, the excesses of the Black Lives Matter movement, and years of breathless coverage of Russiagate. At the same time, artificial intelligence looms over the labor market with few clear answers about what comes next. Add to that a political class that often appears shamelessly corrupt, and the result is a public that feels misled, ignored, and exposed. But frustration does not remain static. In the United States today, it is mutating into something darker: nihilism. This nihilism is built on an enormous lie. It tells people that America’s problems are unsolvable, that their personal struggles are not the result of bad decisions, bad luck, or even fixable structural flaws but of an all-encompassing evil system. In this story, shadowy elites control everything, success is impossible without “piercing the matrix,” and anyone who talks about personal responsibility or moral restraint must be part of the conspiracy itself. This mindset does not produce solutions. It prevents them. It short-circuits thought, discourages effort, and ultimately leads to personal and national self-destruction. Its political consequences are already visible: incoherence, radicalization, and a growing number of young Americans searching for meaning at the edges of society—sometimes with violent results. On Monday, Washington Post reporter Peter Whoriskey described a troubling pattern behind a series of recent attacks: “Amid a wave of high-profile killings and political violence in the United States, investigators have been confounded regularly by the absence of a recognizable agenda. … They were not Democrat or Republican, or Islamist militant, or antifa or white supremacist. “They were something new. In their manifestos, these attackers declared their contempt for humanity and a desire to see the collapse of civilization. Law enforcement officers and federal prosecutors have begun to describe these attacks as a contemporary strain of nihilism, an online revival of the philosophical stance that arose in the 19th century to deny the existence of moral truths and meaning in the universe.” History offers a warning here. Periods of upheaval have long been fertile ground for nihilistic violence. Fyodor Dostoyevsky captured this phenomenon in “Notes from the Underground” in 1864, describing the human impulse to reject reason, order, and even self-interest simply to assert independence. Strip people of the belief that they have meaningful choices, Dostoyevsky warned, and they will lash out—not despite the destruction that follows but because of it. This insight remains painfully relevant. When people are convinced that nothing they do matters, destruction begins to look like agency. The modern version of this thinking often takes the form of what philosopher Karl Popper famously called the “conspiracy theory of society.” Writing in the mid-20th century, Popper argued that as belief in divine forces faded, people replaced gods with sinister elites—imagined groups blamed for every social ill, from economic hardship to personal failure. There are, of course, real conspiracies. They involve identifiable people, specific actions, and evidence. What dominates American discourse today is something far more corrosive: The belief that everything is rigged, nothing is within individual control, and violence or pseudo-revolution is the only path forward. That belief is spreading quickly—and not by accident. This wave of nihilism is being actively cultivated by influencers and politicians who practice ideological arson and then market themselves as firefighters. They profit by persuading audiences that their lives are unfixable unless they surrender attention, money and power to the very figures stoking the despair. Nihilism is lucrative. Influencers monetize it. Politicians harness it—at least until it turns on them. The message being sold is simple: Society is rigged, the system is evil, and only by following the right personality, the right movement or the right “truth-teller” can you break free. It is a con dressed up as enlightenment. And it is one of the most dangerous cons of our time. America is living through an era thick with grift, cynicism, and manufactured despair. The real threat is not frustration itself but the lie that nothing can be done—and that burning everything down is the only remaining choice. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.  The post The Con Consuming American Politics appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Transgender orthodoxy is in retreat in medicine, the courts, and even business—as the LGBTQ mafia bleeds allies in corporate America. The Human Rights Campaign has long employed mafia-like tactics to pressure companies to toe the line on gender ideology, but a growing chorus of critics, assisted by President Donald Trump’s second administration, has led companies to reconsider their alliances with the organization. About three-quarters of all Fortune 500 companies (377) disclosed their business practices to HRC in 2025, so the LGBTQ activist group could rate them on its Corporate Equality Index. This year, however, only 131 companies are working with HRC—a 65% drop. This represents a massive hit to the transgender industrial complex, but conservatives shouldn’t rest on their laurels. In the very press release where HRC admits its massive losses, it touts its abiding impact: the companies still working with HRC employ over 22 million Americans. HRC’s Social Credit Score The Human Rights Campaign bills itself as “the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization,” and it takes credit for “transforming the institutions and systems that shape our everyday lives by advancing LGBTQ+ inclusive policies and practices in schools, workplaces, hospitals, communities and beyond.” That sounds noble. Americans support being “inclusive,” right? Yet many Americans vehemently disagree with HRC’s interpretation of this purported “inclusion.” When it comes to transgender orthodoxy, “inclusion” means allowing men into women’s intimate spaces. In the corporate setting, it means forcing employees to endorse the lie that a man can become a woman and vice versa. It means celebrating as “joyful” behaviors that many Americans of good conscience consider sinful or depraved. The “inclusion” travels only in one direction. How does HRC “transform” institutions? Its Corporate Equality Index gives every major company a rating to show just how pro-“equality” the company is. Investors in the environmental, social, and governance movement used the index to determine where their money goes, and this made the index extremely powerful. Like the mafia or Al Capone, the Human Rights Campaign promises these brands protection from the Left’s activist investors and protester shock troops in exchange for a generous cut. In order to demonstrate their “inclusion,” companies make contributions to LGBTQ groups, partner with transgender influencers like Dylan Mulvaney, and promote rainbow products. When Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, HRC released a list of policy preferences, and Biden’s administration met at least 75% of them. Examples include massive policies—like reinterpreting civil rights law to allow men to invade women’s spaces—and mundane policies—like directing Border Patrol to use the preferred pronouns of illegal aliens. ??THE TRANSGENDER ADMINISTRATIVE STATEThe Human Rights Campaign rates companies based on how pro-LGBTQ they are. The "Corporate Equality Index" is arguably behind both Bud Light and Target going overboard on transgender messaging and losing customers in 2023.HRC also had what… pic.twitter.com/pbPznX43Z7— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) January 21, 2025 Why Is HRC in Retreat? Companies began to desert HRC even before President Trump won reelection in 2024. In 2023, transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney partnered with Bud Light, and the beer lost its top spot in sales rankings. Similarly, Target sales slumped when the company launched a new line of transgender products, including “tuck” swimsuits designed to make men appear female. Conservatives launched pressure campaigns of their own. Alliance Defending Freedom launched a “Viewpoint Diversity Score” to counter HRC’s version, rating companies on whether they respect customers’ religious freedom, whether they harbor religious and ideological diversity, and whether they respect various views in charity and society. 1792 Exchange launched a “Back to Business Tracker” to encourage businesses to withdraw from HRC’s index, to dissolve “diversity, equity, and inclusion” policies, and to refrain from taking divisive positions on political or cultural issues. The Heritage Foundation, Bowyer Research, Inspire Investing, and the National Center for Public Policy Research have engaged in shareholder activism, purchasing shares in major companies and filing resolutions to push companies away from leftist causes and back toward neutrality. This activism has led companies to distance themselves from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which enforces the transgender agenda by demonizing its conservative critics. Conservative activists like Robby Starbuck have taken a page out of the Left’s playbook and started calling companies, urging them to stop allying with HRC. This conservative engagement led companies whose customer bases aren’t a good fit for HRC—firms like Molson Coors, Ford, Harley-Davidson, Jack Daniels, and Lowe’s—to leave HRC in 2024. Backlash to Transgenderism Under Trump’s second term, the trend has only accelerated. Not only has the federal government rejected transgender orthodoxy and DEI, but the medical industry is also starting to wake up to just how destructive transgender orthodoxy can be. A jury recently ordered doctors to pay $2 million to a detransitioner who regretted having her breasts removed. Last week, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons recommended against transgender surgeries for minors, and even said the data doesn’t support hormones for minors. These positive signs should not give gender critics a false sense of security, however. Even while acknowledging its losses, the Human Rights Campaign celebrated that companies opting into its Corporate Equality Index employ over 22 million U.S. employees. A whopping 534 companies earned the top score of 100, and these companies represent nearly 6 million employees. Sanity is winning, but the LGBTQ mafia isn’t going to go away. ADF, 1792 Exchange, Heritage, Starbuck, and others should be encouraged, but also cannot afford to let up the pressure. Here’s hoping HRC loses even more Fortune 500 allies next year. The post IN RETREAT: LGBTQ Mafia Loses More Than Half Its Fortune 500 Partners appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A new Trump-aligned nonprofit is launching to fill a gap in enforcement of the president’s election integrity executive order. Nicole Kelly, senior counsel at Lex Politica, the law firm that represents Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and other Republicans, is the president of a new 501(c)4 called Save Election Day to lead the fight in battleground states to implement the initiatives identified by President Donald Trump’s executive order last March. “President Trump’s executive order that came out last March that really sparked the initial idea here because this organization was founded for one single purpose,” Kelly told The Daily Signal, “which we believe is existential to the future of the United States democracy, which is to lead the fight in the states to implement the key initiatives that were identified and outlined by President Trump.” Save Election Day is particularly aimed at implementing several policies nationwide: one single Election Day; requirements of photo ID to vote; elimination or reduction of mail-in balloting and early voting periods; elimination of post-Election Day ballot receipt periods; and bans on noncitizen voting. “This organization is specifically designed for state law and to lead the fight specifically in the states to implement the executive order,” Kelly said. While other conservative groups have fought bad election laws with litigation, Kelly said Save Election Day will work to actually change those laws. “This organization is actually going to be focused on changing the laws that are on the books through legislation, through ballot initiatives, through administrative actions, constitutional amendments,” Kelly said. “It will, in some cases, necessarily involve litigation, just because, of course, Democrats are going to sue over some of the changes that they don’t want made in elections to clean them up,” she said, “but the focus here will be changing the law that’s on the books, so that when it comes to election integrity operations, whatever is being enforced is actually good law, not just trying to be defensive.” While Kelly says conservative legal organizations have done great work in elections, the needle hasn’t moved enough. “The president has a lot of passion and fervor, and we wanted that same energy for this type of organization to be very action oriented, to make sure that these very important election reforms are made,” she said. While many states have already passed election reform, a lot of work remains, Kelly says. Fourteen states currently do not require any ID to vote, and 11 states currently have ID requirements considered “weak,” allowing voters to sign an affidavit or vouch for identity without presenting photo ID or undergoing a signature comparison. Furthermore, 14 states currently allow mail ballots to be received after Election Day, and 32 states lack any explicit noncitizen voting ban in their state constitutions. “Our priorities are going to be battleground states that have significant impact for Republicans in 2026 and 2028,” Kelly said, “but again, and we’re not going to stop this mission until 50 out of 50 states have all of these tenants of the executive order implemented.” The post Nonprofit Launches to Implement Trump’s Election Integrity Executive Order appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Valentine’s Day has become a large national celebration. It’s an excuse for couples to rekindle their love through date nights and a chance for kids to give candy and cards to their classmates. Many houses in my neighborhood place red lights on their homes as a way to prepare for the holiday. These gestures are nice. Some of them are more intentional and meaningful than others. However, the true foundation of this day is built on the firm ground of sacrifice. St. Valentine was a bishop who lived in the third century. Emperor Claudius II was in power during Valentine’s life, and he decided to outlaw marriage because he believed that this would help him gain more soldiers in his army. Despite this law, Valentine decided to support those who desired to live out their vocation. He began marrying couples in secret despite the new law. He knew that love was more powerful and important than anything else in this world. He knew that the number one priority of our lives is to love and give ourselves away in sacrifice. When word spread about Valentine’s actions, he was imprisoned. His decision to marry couples cost him his freedom and, ultimately, his life. While in jail, he became friendly with the jailor. They would have conversations and became close. Valentine was even credited for healing the jailer’s blind daughter. Valentine and the daughter became close and he would frequently sign his letters to her “your Valentine.” Valentine’s Day is therefore concerned with romantic love. That is accurate and historical, based on this bishop’s desire to marry couples against the law of the emperor. There is something about the love of a husband and wife that is meant to be all-encompassing. Marriage is a perpetual and unbreakable bond, which promises the future of self to the other, no matter what the circumstances of that future might look like. In this way, we see that love is built on a choice, not a feeling. Too many people in today’s culture, unfortunately, claim that love is about a feeling. Once we fall out of love, we no longer need to remain together, even if we have committed our lives to each other. The witness of St. Valentine, rooted in the cross of Christ and the logic of love, states that true love is personified by acting for someone’s good when we don’t feel like it. This truth is encapsulated in the life of Mother Teresa, perhaps the most impactful modern saint, who would often say: “Love to be real, it must cost—it must hurt—it must empty us of self.” On Valentine’s Day this year, this is the most appropriate question: Do my most important relationships (spouse, child, parent, sibling, best friend) cost me anything? What am I willing to do to ensure that my love for these people is sacrificial and not selfish? Ultimately, this depends on our circumstances, but there are some sacrificial characteristics that we can learn from St. Valentine and apply them to our own lives. First, sacrifice takes intentionality. The man or woman of great sacrificial love deeply reflects on and considers how they can act for the one they love in a way that reveals their heart for them. Second, it takes vulnerability. The word “vulnerable” literally means capable of being wounded. Valentine was willing to risk his life so that couples could enter the unbeatable bond of marriage. All love requires that we make ourselves vulnerable in a radical way for the other. We do this by placing all that we are before them to ensure they know we will do anything for their good. Finally, Valentine teaches us that true love means going above and beyond. It was not good enough for Valentine to simply supper these couples or tell them the emperor was wrong. He married them and cared for them. Even when he was imprisoned for doing so, Valentine continued to love those around him like the jailor’s daughter—because true love knows no end. So, on this Valentine’s Day, how can your love be grounded in sacrifice? For that is the entire reason for the day. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.  The post Love as Sacrifice: A Valentine’s Lesson appeared first on The Daily Signal.