Over on Catholic World News , a fellow who goes by the name of Uncle Di reflects on the way that clerics in recent decades have abandoned revealed truth and saving souls in favor of sundry causes of social justice. He recalls a 1942 essay by C.S. Lewis, “First and Second Things.” Lewis . . . . Continue Reading »
In last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine , Peter Beinart continued his musings about the Democratic Party that once was and may be again. Lifted up were the figures of George Kennan and Reinhold Niebuhr who, says Beinart, represented a kind of moral realism, or even just plain morality, that . . . . Continue Reading »
Last week, all week, was Vienna. Which, for readers of this site, had the advantage of a full week of Joseph Bottum’s inimitable reflections on what struck his fancy and elicited his considered fears. He was supposed to have been in Vienna as well, but last-minute editing of a new issue of . . . . Continue Reading »
The Ethics and Public Policy Center sends along word that, on April 20, in the Royal Castle in Warsaw, the Polish Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Kazimierz Ujazdowski, presented First Things board member George Weigel with the Gloria Artis Gold Medal, Poland’s highest honor in . . . . Continue Reading »
It is death by philosophy, it is murder by decree, and the curiously named "freedom to die" becomes a freedom only to die. Wesley Smith reports on the case of Andrea Clark, down in Texas¯where a state "futile-care law" has allowed the bioethics committee at St. . . . . Continue Reading »
So, on the repeated¯and repeated, and repeated¯recommendation of literary friends whose judgment I usually trust, I’ve spent the past few weeks reading comic books. Or, rather, graphic novels , though, I confess, even after I finish them, they still seem to be just comic books: Alan . . . . Continue Reading »
Darfur is finally bubbling back up into the view of the American media. Yesterday, the UN issued its first sanctions over attacks in Sudan’s western region. Al Qaeda has named Darfur as a new battleground in its war against the West. The NATO meeting scheduled for Thursday has the . . . . Continue Reading »
There are pro-life arguments¯or perhaps that’s the wrong word. Talking points, maybe, or tropes or rhetorical gestures. Anyway, there are things one hears in pro-life presentations that I’ve never understood the force of. That many of the suffragettes and early feminists (and even . . . . Continue Reading »
A submission to F IRST T HINGS came across my desk recently. It was about the excesses of a women’s-studies department at a major American university, and I tried to read it. I really did. I mean, it’s my job to look carefully at all this stuff, but, somehow, I just couldn’t get . . . . Continue Reading »
Some readers have taken sharp issue with my agreement with George Will, Thomas Derr, and a host of others that we should cultivate an informed skepticism about some of the more alarmist claims advanced by those warning us about global warming. One reader writes, “Of course there is . . . . Continue Reading »
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