First Things RSS Feed - J. D. Flynn https://www.firstthings.com/author/j-d-flynn en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:57:02 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/j-d-flynn 60 Becoming Signs of Contradiction https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/09/becoming-signs-of-contradiction https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/09/becoming-signs-of-contradiction Mon, 27 Sep 2021 00:00:00 -0400 Last week, British judges upheld a law that permits children with Down syndrome or other disabilities to be aborted in the U.K. at any time before they are born, while abortions of children without disabilities are prohibited after twenty-four weeks’ gestation.

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]]> More Than Our Appetites https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/02/more-than-our-appetites https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/02/more-than-our-appetites Tue, 18 Feb 2020 06:00:00 -0500 Fr. James Martin, S.J., avers that his advocacy does not challenge Catholic doctrine on homosexuality. He has made a point of publishing an essay delineating Church teaching on the subject. I am happy to take Fr. Martin at face value: If he says he does not wish to challenge the Church’s teaching on homosexuality, even if there is some evidence that this may not be true, I am willing to believe him.

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]]> Restoring Trust https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/11/restoring-trust https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/11/restoring-trust Fri, 09 Nov 2018 06:00:00 -0500 On Monday, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops will convene for its 2018 Fall General Assembly —a meeting that may be one of the most important in the history of American Catholicism.

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]]> Looking Down syndrome in the Face https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/01/looking-down-syndrome-in-the-face https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/01/looking-down-syndrome-in-the-face Thu, 25 Jan 2018 06:00:00 -0500 Before I met my son Max, I’d never spent much time with anyone who has Down syndrome.

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]]> Shunning the Disabled https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/08/shunning-the-disabled https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/08/shunning-the-disabled Thu, 17 Aug 2017 06:00:00 -0400 Last October, our family realized that we were not welcome in the French Republic.

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]]> The Civil Marriage Business https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/06/the-civil-marriage-business https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/06/the-civil-marriage-business Fri, 09 Jun 2017 00:00:00 -0400 In his 2015 Erasmus Lecture , Archbishop Charles Chaput called on America’s bishops to reconsider the Church’s role in the civil solemnization of marriage: “Refusing to conduct civil marriages now, as a matter of principled resistance, has vastly more witness value than being kicked out of the marriage business later by the government, which is a likely bet.”

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]]> Christ in the Desert https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2017/03/christ-in-the-desert https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2017/03/christ-in-the-desert Fri, 17 Mar 2017 08:00:00 -0400 On Saturday, I watched good friends carry a miniature white casket up the aisle of our parish church, to be laid before the altar for a funeral Mass. Their son was stillborn last week. Our parish had come to the church to pray for them as they laid their son’s body to rest.

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]]> No Authority Over Divine Law https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/02/no-authority-over-divine-law https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2017/02/no-authority-over-divine-law Thu, 16 Feb 2017 09:40:00 -0500 In his column this week, George Weigel writes that “it cannot be the case that a grave sin in Poland is a source of grace two kilometers across the border in Germany.” The point is that the Church is universal, and ecclesial division ruptures our communion with Christ. There is only one problem with the argument: What is a grave sin in one place can, most certainly, be an occasion of grace in another.

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]]> Suffering and Silence https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/12/suffering-and-silence https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/12/suffering-and-silence Tue, 20 Dec 2016 06:00:00 -0500 I hope that Martin Scorcese’s Silence , premiering this week, will accurately capture the genius of Shusako Endo’s novel . The novel is a meditation on evangelization, the intimate dialogue of prayer, and the imperfect alignment of Christianity with Western culture. And one of its themes in particular makes it timely, in view of the challenges currently facing the Catholic Church.

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]]> The Third Rail of Catholic Life https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2016/10/the-third-rail-of-catholic-life https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2016/10/the-third-rail-of-catholic-life Fri, 07 Oct 2016 16:20:00 -0400 In the past seven months, Amoris Laetitia has become a kind of third rail in the life of the Catholic Church. Amoris stands at a delicate junction—between unchanging hermeneutic and theological principles on the one hand, and sensitive topics such as sex, marriage, and family on the other. And it deals with a kind of entitlement—the mentality that moral prohibitions and sacramental discipline are cruelties out of sync with the Christian Gospel.

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