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Saintly Defiance on Stage

Franz Jägerstätter, born in 1907, led a wild youth in Austria, turned to God after fearing he had killed another man in a fight, and settled down with a wife to run a farm and father children. In 1943, he refused the draft out of a conviction that a Catholic could not fight for Nazism. Defying the entreaties of mother, neighbors, priest, and bishop, he went to the guillotine. Even after the war, Jägerstätter’s countrymen called him a traitor and denied his widow, Franziska, and their three daughters any aid. Only in 2007 was Jägerstätter beatified by Benedict XVI. . . . Continue Reading »

First Links — 5.20.16

The Geeks Can't Defeat Death
David Mills, Aleteia

Catholic Archdiocese to Offer 12 Weeks Paid Parental Leave
David Gibson, Religion News Service

Desire, Deicide, and Atonement: René Girard and St. Thomas Aquinas
Edmund Waldstein, O. Cist., Sancrucensis

Europe's Cheesy Musical Proxy War
Ivan Plis, National Interest

Secret History of Bioluminescence
Ferris Jabr, Hakai

Your Brain Does Not Process Information and it is not a Computer
Robert Epstein, Aeon

This is How Fascism Comes to America
Robert Kagan, Washington Post

Lewis on Tolkien: “Only Needs A Smack or So”
Jonathan McDonald, Dappled Things

The Meaning of Food
Ian Sansom, Times Literary Supplement

First Links — 5.17.16

Is It Time for a US Christian Democracy Party?
Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Aleteia

The Sisters Who Treat the Untreatable
Gillian Laub and Brooke Jarvis, New York Times

Romeo and Juliet gets Local Twist in Gaza Performance
Fares Akram, Times of Israel

The Brotherhood of Moses the Black
Katie Zavadski, Daily Beast

Video: Why Poetry Matters
Dana Gioia, C-Span

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is a Black Hole, Sucking the Fun out of the Universe
Sam Kriss, Wired

A Young Priest Sets the Record Straight for the Catholic Left
Fr. Kyle Doustou, Liturgy Guy

Death by GPS
Greg Milner, Ars Technica

The Little Sisters of the Poor Just Beat the Obama Administration at the Supreme Court
David French, National Review

First Links — 5.13.2016

Captain America: Civil War Puts Humanity Before Spectacle
Alexi Sargeant, Acculturated

What Is the Benedict Option, and Why Might It Be Coming to Your Neighborhood?
John Burger, Aleteia

A Confession of Liberal Intolerance
Nicholas Kristoff, New York Times

The Seven Deadly Social Networks
Robinson Meyer, Atlantic

Pope to Set Up Commission to Study Possibility of Women Deacons
Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register

What the Book Really Means
Melanie Bettinelli, Wine Dark Sea

Would the World be a Better Place Without People like my Daughter?
Dominic Lawson, Daily Mail

Shakespeare as All-Too-Modern Nightmare
Sohrab Ahmari, Wall Street Journal

Gene Editing: New Technology, Old Moral Questions
Brendan P. Foht, New Atlantis

Titles We Didn't Choose — June/July 2016

Our June/July 2016 issue of First Things is hot off the press and available on our website. As a special piece of bonus content, I am here to share with you, loyal readers, some of our also-ran titles: headings for pieces that were suggested at our titles meeting but nixed for being too punny, too . . . . Continue Reading »

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