First Things RSS Feed - Kenneth L. Woodward

The Myth of White Christian Nationalism

Wed, 01 May 2024 00:00:00 -0400

In his first speech as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Mike Johnson sounded like a preacher in a pulpit: “I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear that God is the one who raises up those in authority,” he began. “He raised up each of you, all of us. And I believe that God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment and this time.”

Continue Reading »

Pat Robertson, Seer of Virginia Beach

Fri, 09 Jun 2023 13:20:00 -0400

When we think of the Religious Right, that phenomenon of the 1980s and ’90s, the person that comes first to mind is Jerry Falwell, the face and voice of the Moral Majority. But the Reverend Pat Robertson, who died yesterday at age 93, belongs right next to him, although the two were never chums and could not have been more different.

Continue Reading »

The Sinner and the Saint

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 06:00:00 -0500

Transparency is not a virtue we associate with the Vatican. It is, after all, the last of the Renaissance courts. And like all court systems, it thrives on secrecy: In the years I spent in Rome interviewing Vatican officials—usually not for attribution—it was said that a secret is something you tell one person at a time, in return for one of his secrets.

Continue Reading »

A Grateful Christian

Tue, 11 Dec 2018 06:00:00 -0500

For all the wonderful stories about President George H. W. Bush and how he lived, the story that most reveals the man may be the one about how he died.

Continue Reading »

Homage to a Christian Humanist

Tue, 25 Apr 2017 11:45:00 -0400

When John T. Noonan, Jr. died last week at the age of 90, the American people lost not only a distinguished jurist, scholar, and man of letters. We lost also one the last great Christian humanists. For those, like Rod Dreher, who see no room for committed Christians in the nation’s public square, Noonan’s Erasmian life in law and literature provides a robust affirmation that yes, there is always space in secular America for truly gifted practitioners of a humanism that finds its center in the Incarnation.

Continue Reading »

Is Ross Douthat Qualified to Write About Religion?

Thu, 05 Nov 2015 15:53:00 -0500

This commentary first appeared on the author’s Facebook page and appears here in an edited version with his permission. –Ed.

Continue Reading »

A Joust with Mario Cuomo

Sun, 01 Mar 2015 00:00:00 -0500

The first time I met Mario Cuomo, the first words out of his mouth were “Teilhard de Chardin.” It was early September 1984 and Newsweek ’s editors had invited the governor of New York over for an off-the-record lunch. Cuomo’s rousing keynote address to that year’s Democratic National Convention (though he was out-roused that night by Jesse Jackson) had vaulted him onto the party’s list of future presidential candidates. Newsweek was preparing a cover package on religion and the presidential race for which I was to write the concluding essay. We were waiting at the elevator on the fortieth floor for Cuomo, and when the doors opened the name of his favorite Catholic theologian were the first words we heard from his lips.

Continue Reading »

My Memories of Fr. Benedict

Tue, 04 Nov 2014 00:00:00 -0500

My memory of Fr. Benedict Groeschel goes back to 1964, when he was the Catholic chaplain at Children’s Village in Dobbs Ferry, New York where my wife and I lived for a year right after I was appointed Religion Editor of Newsweek. Friends told us we should attend his masses there if we wanted to hear good preaching. The children, orphans all, loved him, of course. But what I remember are the times when Benedict would clear the altar of its Catholic liturgical artifacts and preach the Protestant service as well whenever the Protestant chaplain was unable to do it himself. When our new house was finished, Benedict spent a day helping us move our furniture.

Continue Reading »

The Making of a Misleading Metaphor

Wed, 30 Apr 2014 13:30:00 -0400

The sturdiest storyline in the coverage of the canonization of two popes last Sunday was a narrative that claimed that Pope Francis yoked the two in a single ceremony because he wanted to unite the conservative and progressing wings of the Catholic Church—as represented by John XXIII (favored by progressives) and John Paul II (ditto by conservatives). That was the narrative in the New York Times , the Washington Post , and among several Catholic pundits who really should have known better. Call it the “Big Tent” metaphor, which is what Jeffrey Goldberg did on Meet the Press, adding that he wished U.S. politicians would go do in like manner. Alas, the U.S. Constitution does not grant anyone the power to canonize saints.

Continue Reading »

Reflections on the Revolution in Rome

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

As mediated by the journalists, the story of the Second Vatican Council was framed as a battle between traditionalists centered in the Roman Curia, the Vatican’s bureaucracy, and a core of progressive bishops, mostly from northern Europe. It was a facile political trope but one that did in fact mirror how important factions within the council understood themselves. Of the two, the progressives were far more open to journalists than the curial conservatives, who treated most reporters—Catholic or secular—as prying adversaries. It was a tactical mistake on their part, but one that did not materially alter either the coverage or the outcome of the council itself.

Continue Reading »