The Editors

In her latest On the Square column , Elizabeth Scalia reminds us that politics is only part of Pope Benedict’s job description: Political action is perceived as glamorous. It has about it an illusory aura of perpetual primacy; to the world, political engagement is the ultimate vehicle of . . . . Continue Reading »

In his latest On the Square column , R.R. Reno reflects on Newt Gingrich and the end of the middle class: The rise of Newt Gingrich is extraordinary: a card-carrying member of the permanent governing class in Washington embraced by the conservative base of the Republican Party. I would have never . . . . Continue Reading »

In his latest On the Square column , Peter J. Leithart reflects on the politics of two advents: Advent celebrates the coming of the King, but the Christian tradition has always recognized that the Son’s first Advent heightens our longing for his coming again. In this respect, Augustine’s . . . . Continue Reading »

In today’s On the Square feature , Janet E. Smith responds to Christopher Tollefsen and Alexander Pruss’ article on lying: Whereas Tollefsen and Pruss speak of “assertion” I speak of “enunciative signification.” I prefer to use the more cumbersome “enunciative . . . . Continue Reading »

First Things ’ video, The Creed: What Christians Profess, and Why It Ought to Matter , should be on your Christmas list this season. Produced by actor, director, and writer, Tim Kelleher, The Creed is a remarkable film about why the radical claims made in the Nicene Creed are so important to . . . . Continue Reading »

In his latest On the Square column , George Weigel praises the cardinal archbishop of Sydney: Pell, who is more a Melbournian than a Sydneysider (although he has been metropolitan archbishop of both great sees), sometimes makes reference to his great Melbourne predecessor, Daniel Mannix, archbishop . . . . Continue Reading »

In her latest On the Square column , Elizabeth Scalia explains why Tim Tebow terrifies us: It says a great deal about the depths to which America’s values have fallen that Tim Tebow—who, once upon a time, would have been the wholesome, women-and-mom-respecting, clean-playing, fresh-faced . . . . Continue Reading »

In today’s On the Square feature, Micah Mattix discusses  Nikolai Gogol’s  The Night Before Christmas : [P]erhaps no Russian writer is as foreign as Nikolai Gogol. He was even baffling to his own countrymen. “Gogol was a strange creature,” Vladimir Nabokov famously . . . . Continue Reading »

In the latest On the Square feature, Gabriel Torretta  reviews Italo Svevo’s novel  Zeno’s Conscience : Thus concludes the self-assessment of Zeno, the vice-ridden, spineless, hypochondriac narrator of Italo Svevo’s modernist classic  Zeno’s Conscience , . . . . Continue Reading »

In his latest On the Square column , Russell E. Saltzman reflects on death and denial: This has been a death-obsessed year for me, and no fun. Actually it’s been a couple of those years, starting in 2009. It has become an intrusive preoccupation. I reread some of my contributions on these . . . . Continue Reading »