This is among the hardest things for us to accept—that at best each of us, whether we’re reporting on an event or contemplating metaphysical matters, has only a partial knowledge of the truth. Continue Reading »
Good teachers must believe something: That the world is and is inexhaustibly greater than they are. Continue Reading »
France is forcing its Muslim citizens to make this choice: To be French, or to be Muslim. In accordance with the French policy of laïcité, French Muslims are told that, in order to be good citizens, they must keep their religion out of the public square. The way I dress seems to invite people to think in these terms, and to assert the principle that the spiritual life should not be lived in public. Continue Reading »
Woman was not made to save civilization, nor to civilize man. She was made to be a companion to him, a necessary ally. But as we see throughout Scripture, since sin entered the world woman can function as either his ally or his opponent. Continue Reading »
The First Things Podcast, Episode 8. Also featuring: burkini bombshells in France and saints named Teresa in literature. Continue Reading »
Surveying the Pope Emeritus’s life and works, it is difficult to think of any other Catholic thinker who so profoundly shaped the Church’s theology since the Second Vatican Council. The heroic diligence, courage, and humility with which he exercised his pastoral vocation indicates that sanctity infused the actions of an intellectual giant worthy of the title Doctor of the Church. Continue Reading »
Thomas Joseph White contends that many modern Christologies, by scanting ontological reflection, lack sufficient resources to undergird the New Testament confession of Christ’s uniqueness and its elaboration in the Church’s creedal and conciliar Tradition. Continue Reading »
Congratulations on 35 years of exemplary cultural leadership. A responsible, discerning critic builds culture by extolling the good, the excellent, the beautiful, and the true, as well as by censuring the corrupt, the base, the ugly, and the trivial. Since its founding in 1982, The New Criterion . . . . Continue Reading »
The choice of clothing is a form of social communication, by which one can (for better or worse) say something about the order of one’s life. Continue Reading »
There will come a time when spiritual priorities diverge from political platforms. Sometimes our job is simply to keep and cultivate the light for those darker days when society has truly gone to the dogs. Continue Reading »
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