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R.R. Reno is editor of First Things.

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From the Editor’s Desk, May 2013

From First Thoughts

From R.R. Reno’s ” Public Square ” in the May issue of First Things . Support First Things by subscribing here . First Things  has been updated for the iPad. It has the same elegant style as the print magazine, but we’ve changed the formatting in significant ways to make . . . . Continue Reading »

Gregg on the Capitalism Debate

From First Thoughts

Samuel Gregg offers a thoughtful assessment of my debate with Robert Miller about economic freedom: its effects and prospects. Gregg is certainly right to point out that we need a moral argument for capitalism, not just a utilitarian one. The fact that it produces wealth is a good thing. But . . . . Continue Reading »

Capitalism and Conservatism

From Web Exclusives

We are not suffering from significant threats to economic freedom and capitalism. Instead, our political challenges mostly flow from the triumph of capitalism. And American conservatism is in trouble because it can’t acknowledge much less respond to this fact. These are two admittedly sweeping claims, and Robert Miller thinks I’m mistaken about both… . Continue Reading »

IUDs, MOOCs, and Money

From First Thoughts

Pamela Fox makes really cool stuff. So says Tessa Miller on  Life Hacker , a website the “curates [web-speak for exercising editorial judgment] tips, tricks, and technology for living better in the digital age.” I’m sure that’s true, about Pamela I mean. But she’s more . . . . Continue Reading »

Pope Francis

From the May 2013 Print Edition

Pope Francis Un ersatz: a phony. That’s how, the day after the papal election, Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky described the new pope in Página/12, a leading progressive paper in Buenos Aires. It’s a striking charge, one made in anger and with a certain bitterness. We do well to pay . . . . Continue Reading »

Rahner the Restorationist

From the May 2013 Print Edition

Karl Rahner was once the figure to be reckoned with. When, at the very outset of the Second Vatican Council, the gathered bishops rejected the schema on revelation prepared in advance by the Holy Office, they signaled the end of the presumptive authority of neoscholastic theology over the . . . . Continue Reading »

Lord Byron’s Foot

From First Thoughts

Poet George Green isn’t somebody I’d want to meet in the Muse’s dark alley. If his wonderful new book of poetry, Lord Byron’s Foot , is any indication, he swings a mean verbal broadsword. Here’s a short poem. It’s part of a series titled “Warhol’s . . . . Continue Reading »

Selective Discipline

From First Thoughts

We live with interesting dissonances. For example, it’s fascinating that young people now accept economic discipline with little protest. That’s something I wouldn’t have predicted when I was in college when people still worried about being imprisoned in what Weber called the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Triumph of Capitalism

From Web Exclusives

We live in an era of unparalleled economic freedom. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, free markets have ruled without much in the way of resistance. As a consequence, for the most part our political problems now involve coming to terms with the global triumph of capitalism… . Continue Reading »