Soap and Oprah
by Carl R. TruemanA new document indicates just how weak Roman Catholic moral theology could become. Continue Reading »
Remembering Kevin Starr, Catholic Historian
by Stephen SchwartzFor most of his career, Starr viewed the California experiment benevolently, as a phenomenon balanced between utopia and reason. But he was an intense Catholic believer who seems finally to have despaired of California’s grandiloquent and heartbreaking destiny. Continue Reading »
Shūsaku Endō's Silence and Faithfulness
by Dale M. CoulterReaders of First Thoughts will know by now that Martin Scorsese’s adaptation of Silence by Shūsaku Endō was released in select theaters on December 23. The novel warrants the attention it is getting. Set in the 1640s at the end of Japan's “Christian Century” (1549-1639), Silence is a haunting journey through one priest’s struggles to remain faithful in the most challenging of circumstances. Continue Reading »
No, Junior, the Catholic Church is not the Same as ISIS
by Br. Michael BaggotA seventh-grader recently asked me how to respond to his peer’s obstinate claim that he and the rest of his Catholic co-religionists are just as bad as ISIS. Continue Reading »
Solidarity and Dynamism
by Filip MazurczakSolidarity showed the world the link between the Polish nation and Catholicism. However, few outside Poland know the history of this bond. Continue Reading »
Poetry and Popery
by The EditorsThe First Things Podcast, Episode 17. Also featuring: Thanksgiving wishes from the First Things staff. Continue Reading »
Catholic Scholars Commend the Witness of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC)
by Robert P. GeorgeThe historic Black church and the Catholic Church in America, though allies in many struggles, have been too much like strangers to each other for too long. It should not have taken the unprecedented moral challenges we now face, or the abject failures of our political elites, to bring us closer together. Continue Reading »
Making Sense of It
by Francis X. MaierMaybe the only satisfying thing about the November 8 election of Donald Trump as president was the shock on the part of America’s pollsters, media, and leadership class, as the inconceivable actually happened.
Why did it happen? Continue Reading »
A Distinction without Discipline
by Dan HitchensIf Crosby’s reform were enacted, priests would have to judge the souls of their flock. The remarried would be divided into those whose lives have a Dostoevskian tragic resonance, and those who are merely “common adulteresses.” This cruel charade would collapse before it began. Continue Reading »
I Think I'm Not a Contra
by Matthew SchmitzCatholics must now discard the idea of an aspirational centrism, and embrace the role of unashamed dissent. Continue Reading »
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