This essay unfortunately has a number of plagiarized passages that were only discovered after First Things had translated and published it. Please see my explanation and apology for details. —R. R. Reno A great many of our fellow citizens see demands for h

There is a long, rich, varied, and subtle tradition of natural law theory, almost none of which I find especially convincing, but most of which I acknowledge to be—according to the presuppositions of the intellectual world in which it was gestated—perfectly c

Let’s not speak of suicide. Let’s not encourage the cottage industry bent on reducing David Foster Wallace to a literary Kurt Cobain, a romance of self-demise. This is a significant temptation for any posthumous reading of Wallace, whose writing is populated

The deep reform of the Catholic Church has been underway since the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII (1878–1903), which marked a decisive break with the essentially defensive strategy Pope Pius IX and his immediate predecessors had adopted toward cultural and poli

Roe’s Legacy While Jon Shields’ provocative piece (“Roe’s Pro-Life Legacy,” January) credits the Supreme Court decision with mobilizing the pro-life side to begin “changing the hearts and minds” of those on the pro-choice side, I believe he understates the

For the first ten of its eleven chapters, the Metamorphosis or Golden Ass of Apuleius (c. 125–c. 180) seems to be nothing more than a diverting, frequently ribald burlesque; but then, in the closing pages, the tone entirely changes, and all at once the farce

America-Lite: How Imperial Academia Dismantled Our Culture (and Ushered in the Obamacrats) by David Gelernter Encounter Books, 200 pages, $23.99 When Roger Kimball wrote Tenured Radicals back in 1990, for conservatives and traditionalists the thesis quickl

Conservatism needs to recover its ability to speak to our deep and perennial need for solidarity. The economic freedom that encourages individuals to be productive and independent certainly needs to be promoted. We need more robust economic growth, and there’

A frosty sunlit Sunday morning. We, Still sleepy on our way to early Mass, Were snapped alert—sudden anxiety— As deer stepped from the trees intent to pass Across in front of us and the large van Oncoming filled with folks. Both drivers slowed, Then stopped,

Consumerist Care It is true that the medical services Wesley J. Smith defines as “consumerist”—such as cosmetic surgery, in vitro fertilization, and Viagra prescriptions—should not be considered basic health care (“Careless Consumerism,” December). But even

In observance of National Poetry Month, every Friday of April Micah Mattix will be examining one great line of verse. -Ed. That one of the most striking lines of poetry on beauty’s impermanence was written by a priest-killer and a thief is among literary h

Last month, a Swiss woman biking through India with her husband was gang raped by five attackers. In December, a female medical student, accompanied by a male friend, was riding a bus in Delhi, India, when she was brutally gang raped by eight passengers who t

Hello, senior seminarians everywhere. You are among the slew of new pastors soon to be unleashed upon unsuspecting congregations and parishes all across America. The Church of Christ trembles with excitement. Obviously, it is far too late in the game for

Certain ritual encounters have now become standard operating procedure for a new pope. In each of these meetings, Pope Francis has done something surprising, in his low-key, gentle way. In a Mass celebrated in the Sistine Chapel with the College of Cardina

All of us have a longing to be fully known: by ourselves, by others, and by God. Fundamental to Christian thought is this: We can only know ourselves fully when we know ourselves as we are known by God. As Gaudium et Spes teaches, “In reality it is only in th

To the Wonder follows the relationship of Frenchwoman Marina (Olga Kurylenko) and American Neil (Ben Affleck), who fall in love in Paris and then return to Neil’s American home along with Marina’s young daughter. Their relationship stalls, and another woman,

A few weeks ago, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came out in favor of same-sex marriage. Having first allowed her husband to send up a trial balloon, Mrs. Clinton revealed that she had, like President Barack Obama, finally “evolved” in her thinking.

Republicans are in a world of hurt. Many analysts believe that the old coalition of social and fiscal conservatism doesn’t sell, at least not well enough to win national elections. The culprit, many think, is “certain social issues,” as a recent GOP national

Studies compete for the most accurate representation of the risk to a marriage posed by living together before the wedding, but most estimations predict somewhere around a 33 percent increased risk of divorce. Regardless of magnitude, however, they all claim

In observance of National Poetry Month, every Friday of April Micah Mattix will be examining one great line of verse. -Ed. The famous first line of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land was almost certainly not written in April but in January. In a letter on Januar