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 . . . . Continue Reading »
A Consuming Fire: The Fall of the Confederacy in the Mind of the White Christian South
From the August/September 1999 Print EditionA 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 course, about a proper understanding of the Constitution. Recalled were the military virtues of Jackson, the moral virtues of Lee, and the . . . . Continue Reading »
The City of Man and Modern Liberty and Its Discontents: Selected Writings of Pierre Manent
From the December 1998 Print EditionTo love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately. So concludes Pierre Manent in his book Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy (1982). But, Manent points out, it is not easy to love democracy moderately. As Tocqueville reported, the democratic revolution separated . . . . 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 . . . . 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 . . . . 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 »
The Return of George Sutherland: Restoring a Jurisprudence of Natural Rights By Hadley Arkes Princeton University Press. 297 pp. $29.95 This work is not strictly speaking a biography, though it reports the key facts about the life of Justice George Sutherland. Hadley Arkes analyzes . . . . Continue Reading »
influential
journal of
religion and
public life
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things