Patrick Brown
Fellow @EPPCdc, working on pro-family policy. Columnist @NCRegister, Contributor @Deseret/@TheDispatch. I had a marvelous time ruining everything.
Articles by Patrick Brown
Medicinal Notes on Inter-Religious Dialogue
Published September 9, 2026 The Catholic Thing For three of my 27 years on diocesan staff, I had the attached duty of ecumenical and inter-religious affairs. It was great work. We had good relations with local Protestant and Latter-Day Saint communities; cordial discussions with local rabbis; and personal friendships with local Greek Orthodox and American Jewish Committee leaders. With Islam, the story was different.
‘Gaslighting,’ ‘Toxic,’ ‘Trauma’: How Therapy-Speak Is Changing Family Life
Published September 9, 2026 Daily Signal This is an adapted excerpt from Noelle Mering’s new book “No Contact: How a Seductive Ideology Broke Families and Friendships and How We Can Repair Them,” released Sept. 8 from Forum Books. In 2022, Merriam-Webster declared gaslighting its word of the year after searches for the term increased by more than 1,700%.
Unlearned Lessons of 9/11, a Quarter-Century Later
Published September 9, 2026 National Catholic Register Several weeks after Islamist terrorists hijacked four planes, wreaking havoc in lower Manhattan and at the Pentagon in the name of deranged religious convictions, I was at dinner in the papal apartment with John Paul II and three of his closest associates. The mood was somber, which was unusual at that table.
The midterm map’s most telling contests? These are my five picks.
Published September 9, 2026 The Washington Post Labor Day traditionally marks the start of the real campaign. With a host of races to track this year, which ones are most likely to be indicative of the outcome? Here’s my list. For Democrats, winning control of the Senate would be like drawing an inside straight in poker. Four seats on the ballot appear vulnerable to flipping based on prior election patterns: Maine and North Carolina are Republican-held, while Georgia and Michigan are Democratic.
New Book Reveals Devastating Impact of “No Contact” Movement
September 8, 2026 (Washington DC): The Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) is pleased to announce a new book by EPPC fellow and bestselling author Noelle Mering. Published today, No Contact: How a Destructive Ideology Broke Families and Friendships and How We Can Repair Them (288 pp. Forum ISBN-13 979-8217152001) exposes the destructive ideological movement that is warping our most important relationships. More than sixty-eight million Americans are currently alienated from close family members.
Judge Bibas and Legal Language
Published August 27, 2026 National Review Law.com has an interesting article about Judge Stephanos Bibas’s writing advice for lawyers. In it he bemoans both how lawyers don’t read enough “good fiction and journalism” and the use of “fancy Latinate legalisms” in legal writing. His suggestions that lawyers read more good novels and real journalism is quite sound.
EPPC Scholar Amicus Brief Urges Supreme Court to Clarify First Amendment Protections for Church Governance
Published September 2, 2026 PDF On September 2, 2026, EPPC Scholar Rachel N. Morrison filed an amicus brief in Singh v. Second Judicial District Court of the State of Nevada, urging the Supreme Court to hear a case involving the scope of First Amendment protections for religious organizations.
Government’s Sex Abuse Hypocrisy Comes Due
Published September 3, 2026 First Things Iworked in senior staff positions in Catholic dioceses for twenty-seven years. For nearly all of them my duties included, in part, dealing with the legal, political, and media fallout of clergy sex abuse. A favorite theme of those years, from plaintiffs’ attorneys to the mainstream press, was the hypocrisy of a Church that preached sexual purity while harboring a tribe of sex predators. It was an ugly experience, but not an unwarranted one.
The Greatness of the First St. Gregory
Published September 3, 2026 The Catholic Thing Today the Church marks the feast of St. Gregory the Great, pope and doctor of the Church. He was born around 540, just a few years before the death of another great European saint (and co-patron of Europe) Benedict of Nursia. The lives of these two men are similar in interesting ways. But the ways in which their lives ultimately diverge also reveal something about how the Lord provides for his Church.
Clare Morell Awarded Surgeon General’s Medallion
September 2, 2026 (Washington): Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) fellow Clare Morell has been awarded the Surgeon General’s Medallion for her work on the recent Surgeon General’s Advisory “Warning on the Harms of Screen Use,” which explains the harms to children and includes a toolkit for parents, educators, and young people themselves. The medallion is the highest honor that can be presented to a civilian by the Surgeon General.
A Great Teacher and a Welcome Manifesto
Published September 2, 2026 First Things Reluctant as I am to fiddle with the U.S. Constitution, I’m willing to consider an amendment banning any elementary school from opening before Labor Day. That’s the way things were when I was a boy in Baltimore and could no more imagine being in school before Labor Day than I could imagine rooting for the New York Yankees.
EPPC Announces Addition of Bronwen McShea as Visiting Fellow
September 1, 2026 (Washington): Today, Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) President Ryan T. Anderson announced that Bronwen McShea has joined the organization as a visiting fellow. She will complete an institutional history of EPPC in commemoration of its 50th anniversary, in addition to pursuing her own projects. Based in New York City, McShea is a historian of Christianity and culture from medieval to modern times.
The Spiritual Roots of JD Vance’s Populism
Published August 20, 2026 National Review Orson Scott Card’s novel Ender’s Game (1985) follows a group of teenagers who grow up to influence the course of history. One posts under an alias on an online message board and ends up becoming a persuasive writer and an influential politician. Another, Ender Wiggin, is trained in the art of warfare through a series of immersive battlefield simulations — which are finally revealed to have not been simulations at all.
Why The Religious Left’s New Christianity Is As Hollow As Their Beliefs
Published August 28, 2026 Daily Wire Since at least the 2000s, one of the dominant trends and divides shaping American politics has been the supposed “God-gap” existing between Republicans and Democrats, with Republicans being the party more open to religious voters and the Democrats becoming the party of secularism.
Republicans in America’s reddest state just sent their party a message
Published August 26, 2026 The Washington Post Florida’s primaries attracted the most national attention last week, but the more consequential ones were in Wyoming, where Republicans dealt a massive rebuke to the state’s Freedom Caucus. The result showed — once again — that GOP voters’ appetite for small government is minuscule, at best. In 2025, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus became the first of its kind (there are many freedom caucuses in state legislatures) to obtain control of a chamber.
A Surprisingly Subversive Sex Comedy
Published August 26, 2026 First Things In his recent memoir, Communion, JD Vance talks about feeling “profoundly sad for today’s kids” navigating the dating scene. “Hookup culture wasn’t good in a lot of ways,” he writes. “It wasn’t exactly a perfect example of Christian sexual ethics. But the mistakes you saw people make were normal mistakes.
Expanding Choice In Child Care Could Be The Solution For Struggling American Families
Published May 21, 2026 The Daily Wire Progressives frequently pine for the type of universal child care system found in Nordic countries. But earlier this month, the White House released new child care guidance illustrating that one doesn’t need to dream of Stockholm to meaningfully expand choices for working families.
Don’t Blame the Girlboss for the Falling Birth Rate
Don’t Blame the Girlboss for the Falling Birth Rate “Blaming career women for declining fertility misunderstands the cultural dynamics at play,” writes Patrick T. Brown. (Mark Peterson via Getty Images) The recent drop in fertility has nothing to do with career women. But a different cohort is having many fewer children.
Revolutionary Fatherhood on the Silver Screen
Published March 17, 2026 Fairer Disputations The uncanny timing and uncomfortable political resonance of Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another likely helped the film win the Academy Award for Best Picture on Sunday night.
When Iceland Gave Citizens a Tax-Free Year, They Had More Babies
It is often claimed that income and wealth act negatively on fertility, not least by former British cabinet ministers. A comparison of countries and regions around the world yields a strong negative association between income and fertility. However, there are many socioeconomic and cultural factors that affect this relationship. To isolate the effect of one factor, social scientists find natural experiments in which a shock to just one variable occurred.
Polling Shows Majority of Americans Favor Upfront Support for New Parents
Published March 9, 2026 Parents who welcome a new child to their family often face a cash flow problem—their incomes become more volatile right as their expenses increase. Most U.S. workers do not have access to paid parental leave, and the bills start piling up before baby is even born—prenatal visits, strollers, car seats, diapers, and more. Upfront cash assistance to new parents, often referred to as a “baby bonus,” helps address this uniquely vulnerable time for families.
Loneliness isn’t for cowards; It’s for the Institution-less
I spent most of my 30s feeling lonely. Back in 2014, I moved to Los Angeles for a job at BuzzFeed’s fast-growing news division. The job was a dream come true for a young reporter, and the fact that it was in a big and exciting city was icing on the cake. Unfortunately, I didn’t know anyone in L.A., and little by little, that began to wear on me. I was lonely. But was I a coward? That’s the provocative thesis floated in a viral Wall Street Journal piece from earlier this week.
Three False Claims Behind the Push for Universal Child Care
Universal child care has moved from a long shot on a progressive wish list to the mainstream of the American policy debate. Even The Dispatch—a conservative outlet—recently featured the topic in its Debate Series, in which I participated along with IFS Senior Fellow Jenet Erickson. Proposals to shift much of young children's care from families to government-funded programs are now gaining serious traction at both state and federal levels.
How to Reverse Population Decline: The Crowbar Model
Birth rates are crashing around the world, and more countries are waking up to the reality that unless governments do something to change course, major population declines are ahead. Even so, it’s far less clear what should be done. Baby bonuses? Child allowances? Parental leave? Free child care? Promote religious schools? Ban social media? Free IVF? Which policies will work? Our work at the IFS Pronatalism Initiative is aimed at answering that question.
High at a cost: Can anything stop America's marijuana madness?
High at a cost: Can anything stop America's marijuana madness? Vol. 11 | No. 4 | February 20, 2026 On the cover: Marijuana has become more accessible (and more potent) than ever in the U.S. But while Catholic teaching on its use is clear, on Page 10 Patrick T. Brown argues that any answer to society’s casual attitude toward weed should keep in mind that the consequences of pot use are hard to reconcile with the Church’s vision of a life well lived. Articles Inside
A blunt reality: Are we ready for the coming marijuana boom?
Published February 17, 2026 Angelus News Weed in America is riding high. In 2011, no state in the union legally allowed cannabis for personal, non-medical use (not that that ever stopped Seth Rogen, Snoop Dogg, or Willie Nelson). A decade-and-a-half later, almost half the states allow recreational marijuana, and a new change in Washington will soon make cannabis easier to sell and market. This explosion of access has the potential for dramatic ramifications for society at large.
Big Tech Meets Big Fertility
When eugenics comes to America, it will come not as buxom blondes in ads for blue jeans, but wrapped in therapy-speak: “safety,” “optimization,” and “reassurance.” Some, doubtless, welcome this future, envisioning a world with fewer kids born with congenital illnesses, fewer disabled adults, fewer surprises. Others dread it, concerned about a gradual slide toward ableism and less forbearance toward those whose characteristics, health conditions, and appearances don’t fit the typical mold.
The Logical End of ‘Reproductive Freedom’ - Ethics & Public Policy Center
Published December 18, 2025 The Dispatch Is a baby just like any other deliverable? Should gestation be treated like any other service rendered? Is labor just another form of, well, labor? For decades, America has taken a fairly light touch to questions of bioethics. It’s not just social conservatives who refer to the U.S. as the “Wild West” of assisted reproduction— progressive historians and feminist legal scholars do the same.
EEPC Scholar Submits Comment Supporting Elimination of Disparate Impact Liability for Creditors
Published December 15, 2025 PDF On December 15, 2025, EPPC Scholar Rachel N. Morrison submitted a public comment supporting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) proposed rule that would amend regulations related to disparate impact under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA).
Practitioners of Infanticide
Published December 12, 2025 First Things A physician declares his dying patient—a seven-pound baby boy—“dangerous as dynamite,” a “menace to society.” A routine medical procedure could save the boy’s life, but he was born deformed. Later reports will find that most of the deformities are cosmetic: He is missing his right ear, and the skin on his shoulder is defective. But, critically, there is a blockage at the end of his intestine. This last seals the boy’s fate.
The Tilma, false gods, and the fate of our age
Published December 12, 2025 The Catholic Herald When Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to the peasant Juan Diego in 1531, Mesoamerica stood at a crossroads. The Aztec Empire had fallen, yet the religious imagination it shaped remained formidable. Centuries of human sacrifice soaked the land and the collective memory.
Nostalgia and Advent
Published December 11, 2025 The Catholic Thing The word “nostalgia” was coined in the seventeenth century by a Swiss physician named Johannes Hofer.
Why Josef Pieper Wanted ‘Every Theology Student’ to Read This Essay
Published December 11, 2025 National Catholic Register The essay Josef Pieper wanted “every theology student” to read has just been published for the first time in English translation in the book Bread Grows in Winter by Ida Friederike Görres. In 1969, the tumult following the Second Vatican Council had become a way of life, not least of all in seminaries and universities, augmented by the onslaught of the 1968 revolution. Not even the study of theology was untouched.
On Obamacare, Republicans Negotiate Their Terms of Surrender
Published December 11, 2025 The Dispatch When Democrats and Republicans put forward competing Senate bills Thursday to provide enhanced federal support to more than 20 million people getting their insurance through the Affordable Care Act, to many people it might look like a genuine debate. To the American Enterprise Institute’s Yuval Levin, an expert on health care policy, it looks like “the Republicans are basically negotiating their surrender” on Obamacare.
EPPC Scholar Files Amicus Brief in the Tenth Circuit Arguing that “Gender Identity”-Based Overnight Assignments Violate Parents’ Constitutional Rights - Ethics & Public Policy Center
Published November 26, 2025 PDF On November 26, 2025, EPPC scholar Eric Kniffin filed an amicus brief in the Tenth Circuit case Wailes v. Jefferson County (CO) Public Schools, which argues that a school district policy that places students in overnight accommodations based on gender identity instead of by sex violates objecting parents’ constitutional rights.
Six candidates to watch in the 2026 midterm elections
Published December 1, 2025 Washington Post Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic candidate for Michigan’s open Senate seat in a primary that appears to be a tight three-way race, tops my list of candidates to watch. How he, and his unapologetic progressivism, fares will be an excellent barometer for the strength of the party’s left wing. El-Sayed’s campaign website advertises his continued support for Medicare-for-all, the proposal to make Medicare the default health insurance program for every American.
A crisis of meaning
Published December 1, 2025 WORLD Opinions Americans are having fewer babies. The Trump Administration wants to fix that. Declining birth rates aren’t good news for any country, and the latest U.S. data shows a current total fertility rate of 1.6, well below replacement level of 2.1. President Trump, acting on campaign promises, sees increasing access to fertility treatments as one way to boost a baby boom.
EPPC Distinguished Senior Fellow George Weigel Honored in Ukraine
December 1, 2025 On November 30, at the National Opera House in L’viv, Ukraine, EPPC Distinguished Senior Fellow George Weigel was honored with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church’s Blessed Omelyan Kovch Award, along with four other 2025 award laureates. The award is one of Ukraine’s most prestigious humanitarian awards, given in recognition of those who have made exceptional contributions to the support of Ukraine.
Why polls show National Rally’s Bardella may be the next President of France
Published December 1, 2025 Brussels Signal Paris is aflutter with talk of that poll – the one showing that Jordan Bardella would easily beat all potential rivals in the second round of 2027’s presidential election. The details behind those results demonstrate why conservative populism is gaining ground – and how its ultimate triumph still requires nuance and skill.
Is President Trump Thinking About Greenland Again?
Published November 21, 2025 National Review Online President Trump hasn’t talked much about Greenland in recent months. That doesn’t mean he has forgotten about it. His recent declaration that Medicare and Medicaid will soon pay for weight loss drugs such as Zepbound and Wegovy could be the key that unlocks Trump’s Greenland ambitions. That’s because Denmark, which controls Greenland, is home to Novo Nordisk, the company that makes Ozempic and Wegovy.
Feasting at the End of the World
Published November 27, 2025 The Catholic Thing There is something fitting about the date of Thanksgiving. I don’t mean that there’s anything particularly special about the fourth Thursday of November except that it invariably falls in the last week of Ordinary Time. And so our secular holiday corresponds with the close of the liturgical year.
Walker Percy’s Pilgrimage
Published November 25, 2025 First Things People can get used to most anything.
EPPC Scholar Supports USTR’s Investigation of Nicaraguan Regime’s Religious Freedom Violations - Ethics & Public Policy Center
Published November 19, 2025 PDF On November 19, 2025, EPPC Scholar Eric Kniffin submitted a public comment in response to a notice from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) describing its investigation “regarding Nicaragua’s acts, policies, and practices related to labor rights, human rights, and the rule of law” and seeking input on appropriate action against the Ortega-Murillo regime.
Beloved Catholic Writer’s Work Made Available in English for First Time
November 24, 2025 Dr. Jennifer Bryson, a scholar in the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s (EPPC) Catholic Studies program, has released the first English translation of Ida Friederike Görres’s “Bread Grows in Winter” (250 pp. Ignatius Press ISBN-10 9781621647386) a powerful collection of Catholic essays and lectures from 1967 to 1970. During her lifetime, Ida Friederike Görres was a prominent Catholic thinker and writer.
The Parental Arms Race Needs to End
Recently, in these pages, Ivana Greco made her pitch for why parents should opt out of the escalating arms race around parenthood. Elizabeth Grace Matthew, in her contribution, similarly puts the onus on parents to make their lives easier by, well, acting like parents. They are correct to make the case, but their solutions don’t go far enough.
The Parental Arms Race Needs to End
Published November 23, 2025 The Public Discourse Recently, in these pages, Ivana Greco made her pitch for why parents should opt out of the escalating arms race around parenthood. Elizabeth Grace Matthew, in her contribution, similarly puts the onus on parents to make their lives easier by, well, acting like parents. They are correct to make the case, but their solutions don’t go far enough.
Trump 2.0 so far gives reasons for gratitude and reasons for alarm
Published November 21, 2025 Washington Examiner Conservatives have a lot to be thankful for as we approach Thanksgiving. The outlook might not look so rosy next year, though, if President Donald Trump does not make some course corrections. There’s so much to choose from that any list is bound to be insufficient. Going in chronological order, the efforts to reduce federal spending that started with the Department of Government Efficiency commission have to be high on any conservative’s list.
Why Congress Protected Senators’ Right to Sue
Published November 20, 2025 The Wall Street Journal Anya Bidwell and Patrick Jaicomo misunderstand why the Senate added new retroactive penalties for the executive branch’s spying on senators (“A Senators-Only Right to Sue in Shutdown Deal,” op-ed, Nov. 13). The problem with special counsel Jack Smith’s subpoenaing Republicans’ phone records wasn’t a general question of government abuse or lawfare. It was about the separation of powers as provided in the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause.
New Poll from EPPC Reveals Widespread Concern about Genetic Screening of Embryos
November 19, 2025 (Washington DC): A new poll released today by Patrick Brown of the Ethics and Public Policy (EPPC) finds that four in five voters have deep concerns about the ethical implications of embryo screening technology. While the technology is still unproven, its backers promise an era of “responsible” parenthood, when parents will create and select embryos according to their preferences.
Embryo Genetic Screening Polling and Policies
Published November 19, 2025 Four in five voters have at least some concerns about the future of embryo screening Very few Americans want Silicon Valley to “hack” reproduction Commonsense regulations have potential for support across demographic groups Silicon Valley-funded startups purport to be able to give would-be parents the ability to screen their embryos for genetic traits, such as physical appearance, propensity for disease, even predicted intelligence.
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