Kevin Staley-Joyce

For readers of George Weigel’s “On The Square” column on the First Things homepage: While we will not feature one such column this week, we will run our next installment early in the new year. . . . . Continue Reading »

When contending with philosophic heavyweights, one can either refuse to argue or argue to win, but the worst thing one can do is to debate without actually arguing. Something like that was in play when NYU Law professor Kenji Yoshino penned a brief response in Slate to “ What is Marriage . . . . Continue Reading »

It is one thing, and isn’t another—and that’s not mere subjective opinion. Or so we read in What is Marriage , a new and momentous paper authored by First Things board member Robert P. George, along with former First Things assistant editor Ryan Anderson and Rhodes Scholar Sherif . . . . Continue Reading »

Today’s first ” On The Square ” item is Joe Carter’s column; today it’s a whimsical creation story narrative. But it’s not your run-of-the-mill creation story; rather, it addresses a certain inequality of myth Carter finds between the children of Judeo-Christian . . . . Continue Reading »

In today’s “ On the Square ” essay, First Things columnist Elizabeth Scalia draws attention to a recent episode in the “war on Christmas” and the war on the “war on Christmas,” both of which have grown rather tiresome over the years. Scalia notes that the cynical . . . . Continue Reading »

In today’s second “ On the Square ” article, Peter J. Leithart points out that what poets have always seen in love (“It’s a burning thing”) can be appreciated by theologians with equal attention—a lesson available to us since the Fall of our first parents. Most . . . . Continue Reading »

In today’s first “ On the Square ” essay, Joe Carter sets up a startling and original juxtaposition between two disparate characters: Ayn Rand’s Howard Roark and Frank Capra’s George Bailey. While for Roark, all roads lead to self-satisfaction, George Bailey . . . . Continue Reading »

In addition to the litany of unhelpful distortions and indulgence in wishful thinking on the part of some religion opinion writers over the weekend, some of the more rigorous in their ranks have provided helpful bits of writing on the Pope’s “condom comment.” One is Dr. Janet . . . . Continue Reading »

Pope Benedict’s clarification of the moral theology relating to condom use has produced one of those moments in media life when journalists ceremoniously remove their thinking caps and implement a hopelessly formulaic analysis of the Church’s inner politics and theological dialogue. CNN . . . . Continue Reading »

Fr. Raymond De Souza published a short piece today on the recent “orgy of violence in Iraq” , in which sixty Catholics and their priests were killed while attending Mass at Baghdad’s cathedral, Our Lady of Salvation. A more anti-Christian attack could hardly have been . . . . Continue Reading »