Alexi Sargeant is assistant editor of First Things. He studied English and Theater at Yale University, graduating in 2015. He has written for the American Conservative, Commonweal, New Criterion, and Aleteia, and his plays have been performed in Philadelphia and at Yale. He previously served as the Junior Fellow at First Things.
Franz Jägerstätter, born in 1907, led a wild youth in Austria, turned to God after fearing he had killed another man in a fight, and settled down with a wife to run a farm and father children. In 1943, he refused the draft out of a conviction that a Catholic could not fight for Nazism. Defying the entreaties of mother, neighbors, priest, and bishop, he went to the guillotine. Even after the war, Jägerstätter’s countrymen called him a traitor and denied his widow, Franziska, and their three daughters any aid. Only in 2007 was Jägerstätter beatified by Benedict XVI. . . . Continue Reading »
Our June/July 2016 issue of First Things is hot off the press and available on our website. As a special piece of bonus content, I am here to share with you, loyal readers, some of our also-ran titles: headings for pieces that were suggested at our titles meeting but nixed for being too punny, too . . . . Continue Reading »
When I was young, my family's favorite hymn was sung on three days of the Church year. We knew it came on Easter and Pentecost, but we scratched our heads when we tried to remember the other festival day hailed in this resounding hymn. Ascension Thursday would catch us each year as a (pleasant) . . . . Continue Reading »
To Trump, or not to Trump, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the land to suffer The tweets and twaddles of outrageous baseness Or to take arms against an orange menace And, by opposing…do what? . . . . Continue Reading »
This Saturday, April 23rd, marks an important anniversary: four hundred years since the death of William Shakespeare. Or, at least, four centuries on from the traditional date of Shakespeare's death, dated backwards from his funeral on April 25th, 1616. Similarly, Shakespeare's birthday is not . . . . Continue Reading »
Our May 2016 issue of First Things is hot of the press and available on our website. As a special piece of bonus content, I am here to share with you, loyal readers, some of our also-ran titles: headings for pieces that were suggested at our titles meeting but nixed for being too punny, too punchy, . . . . Continue Reading »
Have you had a chance to look at the April 2016 edition of First Things on our website yet? Like last month, I am offering up some behind-the-scenes bonus content here in the form of also-ran titles: headings for pieces that were suggested at our titles meeting but nixed for being too punny, too . . . . Continue Reading »
This Holy Week, I am feeling the need to participate in some Catholic extremism.Now of course, we live in a time when religious extremism is a major threat to the world. That’s why I find it all the more distressing that so may Americans have a warped view of what constitutes extremism. The Barna . . . . Continue Reading »
Near the beginning of The Jeweler's Shop, by Karol Wotjyla (the future John Paul II), one of the characters, a young woman, recalls a hiking trip she took with friends. At night, in the mountains, a mysterious cry sounded, and everyone became quiet to listen for the call to sound again. Was it a . . . . Continue Reading »
Today we released the March 2016 edition of First Things on our website. For the amusement of readers (and the delight of anyone who likes to get a glimpse behind the curtain), I have compiled some of the also-ran titles: headings for pieces that were suggested at our titles meeting but nixed for . . . . Continue Reading »