On Tuesday, Pope Francis canonized Fr. Peter Faber, SJ, one of the great figures of the Catholic Reformation; and by doing so, gave us a key to understanding his own approach to the new evangelization, and a model for spreading the faith in modern times. Peter Faber is little known today, but Francis’ announcement should change that. . . . Continue Reading »
Joseph hasn’t received nearly as much attention as Mary over the centuries. There are no lengthy debates about whether Joseph is a co-redeemer, and no one to my knowledge has entertained the possibility that Joseph was perpetually celibate. Yet Joseph is as critical to the Christmas story as Mary. Consider the counterfactuals . . . Continue Reading »
I had to promise my first born child to the fairies to get into Julie Taymor’s sold-out production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but it was worth it: This is fantastic Shakespeare, and it’s worth putting your name on the standby list to try and see it. Despite its reputation for gauziness, Midsummer is actually a ruthless play: all four couplings marred with traces of compulsion, faithlessness, pettiness, and cruelty. . . . Continue Reading »
Ostensibly a protest against the abrupt cessation of talks between the corrupt Ukrainian president and the European Union negotiating Ukraine’s entry into the EU, the “Euromaidan” at Independence Square (maidan means “square”) in Kyiv, Ukraine has blossomed into a determined gesture of non-confidence in the government of Viktor Yanukovych. Since November 21, hundreds of thousands of citizens have shown their dissatisfaction with what they perceive to be Yanukovych’s capitulation to pressure from Russia’s Vladimir Putin by demonstrating and occupying the central square of Ukraine’s capital. . . . Continue Reading »
Though I didn’t vote for President Obama I was unusually happy for his election. To me it said many good things about America. While his speaking ability was possibly the best since Ronald Reagan (whose speaking ability was the best since John F. Kennedy), I thought his small business tax policy, as he explained it to Sam Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber), was appalling. I didn’t much like his notions on a lot of other issues either, starting with questions over abortion, but to be honest, I really wanted a reason to for vote for him. . . . Continue Reading »
When Francis Eugene George first sought admission to the Chicago seminary in the 1950s, Chicago Catholicism imagined itself the future of the Catholic Church in the western world—and not without reason. A lot of the ferment in Catholic intellectual, liturgical, and pastoral life that would eventually produce the Second Vatican Council had already passed through Cook and Lake Counties in the previous two decades. Thus “this confident Church” (as one historian of Chicago Catholicism dubbed it) readily imagined itself the cutting-edge of the Catholic future: where Chicago was, the rest of the Church would eventually be. It was a conceit, to be sure; but it was a conceit with some institutional and pastoral foundation. . . . Continue Reading »
“No serious person is without contradictions. The test lies in the willingness or ability to recognize and confront them.” So wrote the late Christopher Hitchens in 2003, on the centennial of the birth of his fellow countryman Malcolm Muggeridge. The two had much in common. Both were middle class products of the English public school system and elite universities; both were journalist-adventurers, disillusioned socialists, contrarians, and iconoclasts. They were not quite contemporaries—Muggeridge died in 1990, just over forty years after Hitchens was born—but Muggeridge’s life offers a lens through which to remember Hitchens, who died two years ago this December. . . . Continue Reading »
My little cousin and I watch as my uncle washes away the blood, and examines the wound. He is making that odd breathless noise—halfway between a gasp of surprise and a sigh of regret—that he always makes when an attack has been thwarted. My uncle, after all, is nearly forty; an old man long past the charms of making his bed upon the chill earth at night; disenchanted with stargazing while wolves in the dark distance howl, or creep in silence, just beyond our sight. . . . Continue Reading »
In A Charlie Brown Christmas, Charlie Brown’s quest to escape a melancholy brought on by the materialism and artificiality climaxes with Linus’ powerful recitation of St. Luke’s nativity. Remembered now as a classic, the success of the special was by no means assured … Continue Reading »
’Tis the season to be jolly. ’Tis also the season for me to ask for your financial support! Our mission is important. Our need is great. First Things magazine and firstthings.com are published by the Institute on Religion and Public Life, a 503(c)(b) non-profit that depends on people like you for donations… . Continue Reading »
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