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developing status Christopher Kaczor (“Equal Rights, Unequal Wrongs,” August/September) echoes a fallacious argument now popular among pro-life advocates. If human development affected moral status, the story goes, then killing an adult would be worse than killing a teenager, which in . . . . Continue Reading »

• Some of the names are haunting: Once, Chance, Lost. Others are haunting in a different way: Harmony, Melody. Wonderful. These are names parents gave children who lived only a few hours after birth and died in the hospital. Many of these dying children, says a nurse whose story appeared in . . . . Continue Reading »

Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East“West Unity by Adam A. J. Deville Notre Dame, 280 pages, $38 In Orthodoxy and the Modern Papacy , the author, a member of the Ukrainian Catholic Church who teaches theology at the University of St. Francis in Fort Wayne, . . . . Continue Reading »

doubting thomas on lying Janet E. Smith is to be commended for the deference she shows St. Augustine and St. Thomas (“Fig Leaves and Falsehoods,” June/July). Her own position, however, is not without significant precedent in Catholic tradition. Blessed John Henry Newman’s Apologia . . . . Continue Reading »

God and the Art of Happiness by Ellen T. Charry Eerdmans, 311 pages, $35 Princeton Theological Seminary professor Ellen Charry continues her work on the pastoral function of Christian doctrine with this helpful volume in pursuit of what she calls “a Christian doctrine of happiness,” which . . . . Continue Reading »

Avarice and Eden Edward Skidelsky believes that our materialist culture tempts people to do too much productive work (“The Emancipation of Avarice,” May). He thinks that when men have produced reasonable necessaries, comforts, and conveniences to supply “all the population,” . . . . Continue Reading »

• It must be tough being an atheist in the military, what with having no God to rely on in dangerous times. The least we could do, some are now proposing, is provide atheists their own chaplain. Atheism serves the same role in their lives as theism does in others’, and so they should be . . . . Continue Reading »

CHALLENGING EVANGELICALS If Gerald McDermott is right, Martin Luther is the person ultimately responsible for liberal theology (“Evangelicals Divided,” April). Like those evangelicals McDermott labels Meliorists (a term none of us uses), Luther dared to challenge time-honored and settled . . . . Continue Reading »

• People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has announced that men seeking to spay or neuter their pets are eligible for a free vasectomy in solidarity with their soon-to-be sterile dog or cat. The winner will be selected based on how well he argues that “his sterilization will most . . . . Continue Reading »

Wilhelm Röpke’s Political Economy by Samuel Gregg Edward Elgar, 216 pages, $115 Once upon a time, a political economist could write a book titled An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations and another one titled The Theory of Moral Sentiments . Not so anymore. Though . . . . Continue Reading »