Archive


More than thirty-five years of First Things articles at your fingertips

Articles

Filter

Articles

Will the Dallas Charter Update Finally Give Priests Due Process?

Thomas G. Guarino

At their Florida meeting on June 10–12, the American Catholic bishops will vote on proposed revisions to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, colloquially known...

The Debates that Shaped Dei Verbum

Thomas G. Guarino

Since the start of 2026, Pope Leo XIV has embarked, in his Wednesday audiences, on catecheses about the Second Vatican Council. Beginning the new year with the great council...

What Leo Gets Right About the Priesthood

Thomas G. Guarino

Last month, Pope Leo XIV issued an apostolic letter entitled “A Fidelity that Generates the Future” to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary of two unheralded decrees of the Second Vatican...

The Mediatrix Question

Thomas G. Guarino

The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith recently released a document on the Blessed Mother entitled Mater Populi Fidelis (Mother of the Faithful People). It is subtitled “Doctrinal...

Vatican II at Sixty

Thomas G. Guarino

December 8, 2025, is quickly approaching, a date marking the sixtieth anniversary of the close of the Second Vatican Council in 1965. A budding teenager at the time, I...

Did Vatican II Replace One-Sided Papalism with One-Sided Episcopalism?

Thomas G. Guarino

As everyone knows, the Second Vatican Council was an extraordinary event, with ramifications not simply for Catholicism but for virtually the entire world. The conciliar theologians knew the tradition...

Was St. Vincent of Lérins Anti-Augustinian?

Thomas G. Guarino

One of Pope Francis’s favorite theologians, as many will remember, was the early church writer St. Vincent of Lérins. Again and again, Francis cited a few lines from this...

David Tracy’s Theological Missteps 

Thomas G. Guarino

The Catholic Church in the United States has lost a great theologian with the recent death of David Tracy on April 29. The list of academic awards he received...

The Two Sides of the Dallas Charter

Thomas G. Guarino

Cardinal Wilton Gregory has now retired as the archbishop of Washington, D.C. In 2001, Gregory was elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The following year,...

Is Theology Still Queen?

Thomas G. Guarino

Has theology become devalued in the contemporary Catholic Church? I sometimes fear that this is the case—and for the following reasons.   Ever since the implementation of the Charter for...

A Christian Faith Worthy of the Name

Thomas G. Guarino

Christ Brings All Newness: Essays, Reviews, and Reflections by robert p. imbelli, edited with an introduction by richard g. smith word on fire academic, 368 pages, $29.95 In the...

Evangelicals and Catholics Together at 30

Thomas G. Guarino

This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT), the groundbreaking ecumenical initiative founded by Fr. Richard Neuhaus and Chuck Colson in 1994. ECT made quite...

Vatican II and Dignitas Infinita

Thomas G. Guarino

Even the casual reader of Dignitas Infinita (DI), the recent declaration by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, will likely be impressed by the 116 footnotes that...

The Pope’s Favorite Theologian

Thomas G. Guarino

It is old news that Pope Francis has a strong predilection for the thought of St. Vincent of Lérins. Again and again, he has cited one sentence from Vincent’s...

Remembering Avery Dulles

Thomas G. Guarino

Today is the fifteenth anniversary of the death of Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. During his life, Dulles was the premier Catholic systematic theologian in the United States. He was...