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Articles
Don Lemon Gets the First Amendment Wrong
Don Lemon was arrested last week and charged with conspiracy against religious freedom. On January 18, an anti-ICE mob disrupted the Sunday service at a Minnesota church because the...
The Fertility Crisis Will Not Be Solved by Economics Alone
The West’s demographic dearth is capturing the attention of growing numbers of public officials. Speaking on October 14 after a meeting with Italian president Sergio Mattarella, Pope Leo XIV...
Same-Sex Marriage and the European Bishops
On November 25, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ordered Poland to recognize same-sex marriage. Polish law does not provide for same-sex marriage, and Poland’s constitution explicitly declares the...
My Judgment on Nuremberg
Judgment at Nuremberg, Stanley Kramer’s 1961 film about the Nuremberg trials, is rightly deemed an American film classic, featuring top-notch actors. James Vanderbilt’s 2025 Nuremberg, on the other hand...
Where the Church’s Immigration Rhetoric Fails
Catholic discussions of immigration frequently omit salient facts, most prominently the legal status of the “migrant.” I criticized this curious neglect in Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te....
The Lost Art of Saying “No”
Conservative pundit Matt Walsh recently contended that “we have to recapture the long-lost art of saying ‘no.’” He argued that our culture is “no”-averse: “Most people in our culture...
No, DEI Does Not Mean God
According to Washington auxiliary bishop Roy Campbell, Catholics should stand up for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—DEI—because DEI also means “God” (as in, Dei). That insulting association of the Divine...
Reclaiming Time from Work
“Greedy work” is a concept attributed to economist Claudia Goldin, but its intellectual roots can be traced back to Arlie Hochschild. Hochschild’s 1997 book The Time Bind . . .
The Therapeutic Subversion of Parental Rights
Is “mental health” the new cudgel by which the state subverts parental rights? Developments on both sides of the Atlantic suggest the answer may be yes. Earlier this summer,...
Sydney Sweeney and the Real Eugenics Threat
American Eagle has roiled social media by featuring new advertisements showcasing actress Sydney Sweeney’s homonymic double entendre about her great jeans/genes. The ads are classically American: using sex to...
Religious Exemptions Beyond Religious Curiosities?
On July 21, plaintiffs in Kane v. City of New York asked the Supreme Court to review the case, which involves a narrowly constructed religious exemption to the Big...
A Modern-Day Pierce Parental Rights Case?
A case percolating through the Florida state court system has the potential to kill two birds with one stone: upend the subversion of parental rights when it comes to...
Montana Guarantees Kids Access to Religious Instruction
On May 12, Montana Republican governor Greg Gianforte signed legislation guaranteeing children in the Big Sky State access to religious education. Under the bill, kids across Montana are guaranteed...
Rome’s Mario Cuomo Is Gone
The Vatican announced May 19 that Baldassare Cardinal Reina would become the grand chancellor of the John Paul II Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage and Family Sciences. He succeeds...
Free Exercise, Penance, and Delaware Court
Regular First Things readers know that the late Father Richard John Neuhaus never tired of arguing that the First Amendment contains not two religion clauses but one: “no establishment”...
