Richard John Neuhaus

The Public Square If you’re not a Christian and not about to become a Christian, but you’re a public intellectual who is paid to be an expert on a society that is overwhelmingly Christian, you have to make a decision about how to position yourself. For a long time, beginning in the first . . . . Continue Reading »

I was honored to be asked to speak at the commencement of the Dominican House of Studies, also known as the Pontificial Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, in Washington, D.C. As readers of First Things know, I have a thing about the Dominicans and their charism. Here is what I said: I . . . . Continue Reading »

As with the pun, appreciation of the limerick is a cultivated taste. I’m still working on it, very intermittently. Ernest W. Lefever has put together a little collection of 230 of them in Liberating the Limerick (Hamilton Books). There is, for instance, this: . . . . Continue Reading »

Today is Ascension Day, a holy day of obligation. In some dioceses, the observance is transferred to next Sunday. The idea, as it is helpfully explained, is that going to Mass on a weekday may be excessively burdensome or give non-Catholic neighbors the impression that Catholics are different. At . . . . Continue Reading »

So what’s your church? I don’t know what easy answer Mark Kinzer has in response to that question. He is president of the Messianic Jewish Theological institute, and an ordained rabbi who teaches Jewish studies at Fuller Theological Seminary. Jews who have come to faith in Yeshua as the . . . . Continue Reading »

There really is something called the American Name Society. Kent Evans, who teaches psychology at Bellevue University in Nebraska, is the president, and he says that people who follow these things are amazed at the soaring popularity of “Nevaeh” as a name for baby girls. It is now in . . . . Continue Reading »

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), with the approval of the Holy Father, has decided, in the words of the official Vatican statement, "to invite [Father Marcial Maciel] to a reserved life of penitence and prayer, relinquishing any form of public ministry." Fr. Maciel is . . . . Continue Reading »

Over on The American Scene , Ross Douthat reflects on conflicting studies about the effectiveness of promoting abstinence or artificial contraception in reducing teen pregnancies. He correctly notes the dishonesty of including morning-after pills and related abortifacients in the category of . . . . Continue Reading »

The Monday evening speech by President Bush was commendable in many ways. It is appropriate that he urges calm deliberation, the setting aside of inflamed passions, and so forth. But the centerpiece of his argument—that we need a comprehensive solution to the many problems posed by . . . . Continue Reading »

Thomas Albert Howard of Gordon College weighs in on the decision of Wheaton College to terminate a faculty member because he became Catholic. Writing in Books and Culture , Howard is deeply appreciative of the desire of evangelical schools to maintain their theological identity, but he thinks . . . . Continue Reading »