Russell Hittinger

From mosaics and music to paintings and plays, the arts have proven to be a mighty vehicle for retelling the Bible and bringing its stories vividly before our senses. A special intensity marks the art created for the Lenten period. Allegri’s Miserere, the moving rendition of Psalm 51 sung on Good . . . . Continue Reading »

The Common Good and Christian Ethics by David Hollenbach Cambridge University Press. 269 pp. $23 paper It is practically axiomatic for Catholic social doctrine that there are common goods which are irreducibly social, and which are not “public” merely by virtue of being utilities for . . . . Continue Reading »

No saint has been the subject of more hagiography than Francis of Assisi, and no founder has had his or her legacy more determined by biographers. Unlike Benedict, Francis did not convince his followers, if he convinced himself, that a written rule transcends the personality of the founder. Close . . . . Continue Reading »

In the February issue First Things published the Erasmus Lecture of 2000, “Papacy and Power,” by George Weigel. The monumental political influence of the pontificate of John Paul II, Weigel argued, is the result of a long and complicated history in which the papacy has successfully contended . . . . Continue Reading »

A century ago Leo XIII welcomed pilgrims to Rome for the Holy Year of 1900. While expressing gladness at the piety of the pilgrims, Leo admitted that his pontificate had been “difficult and full of anxiety.” Born in 1810, one year after Pius VII was kidnapped by Napoleon, Leo had witnessed the . . . . Continue Reading »

A Consuming Fire: The Fall of the Confederacy in the Mind of the White Christian South.By Eugene D. Genovese.University of Georgia Press. 180 pp. $24.95 A generation ago, in the old “New South,” it was said that the War Between the States was not about slavery so much as about honor and, of . . . . Continue Reading »

The City of Man and Modern Liberty and Its Discontents: Selected Writings of Pierre Manent.By Pierre Manent. Translated by Marc A. LePain. With Forward by Jean Bethke Elshtain.Princeton University Press. 225 pp.$24.95.Modern Liberty and Its Discontent:  Selected Writings of Pierre . . . . Continue Reading »

The Dissent of the Governed: A Meditation on Law, Religion, and Loyalty By Stephen L. Carter Harvard University Press. 167 pp. $19.95 This spring the American media gave considerable attention to critics of the Vatican statement on the Holocaust, “We Remember.” A conspicuous line of criticism . . . . Continue Reading »

“Administration Asks Court to Reject Assisted Suicide,” the headlines ran after Acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger filed on November 12, 1996 the Justice Department’s amicus curiae briefs urging the Supreme Court to uphold the states’ authority to prohibit physician-assisted suicide. . . . . Continue Reading »

In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Supreme Court made abortion the benchmark of its own legitimacy, and indeed the token of the American political covenant. To those who cannot agree with the proposition that individuals have a moral or constitutional right to kill the unborn, or that such . . . . Continue Reading »