Archive
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Articles
Lessons From England
When I was a new convert to Catholicism I used to visit an elderly priest for tea and cake. A fellow convert who shared my love of the Latin...
Nashville and Sodom
The Nashville Statement, a largely unobjectionable assertion of classic Christian teaching on sex and gender, has invited criticism from predictable quarters. Salon denounced the document as “bigotry-filled,” while Eliel...
Revelation on Tap: Vatican I and the “Amoris Laetitia” Controversy
In AD 866, Pope St. Nicholas I condemned the use of torture for extracting confessions as a violation of divine law. He was contradicted when Innocent IV (who had...
Sin in a Time of Accompaniment
While becoming a Christian, I was given a lot of space to figure out what needed to change in my life. No one handed me a stern list of...
The Pope and the Problem of Punishment
Pope Francis recently gave a speech to the International Association of Penal Law advocating for the improvement of prison conditions and reiterating pleas made by his predecessors John Paul...
Uncle Sam Eavesdropping Outside the Confessional
On 28 March, 1606, Fr. Henry Garnet, an English Jesuit, went on trial in London. He was accused of involvement in the famous “Gunpowder Plot” the previous year in...
Fatherless Churches
Almost fifty years ago, when the Catholic Church unveiled its new rite of Mass in the Sistine Chapel, Cardinal John Heenan, then Archbishop of Westminster, remarked that if the...
Francis and Benedict on Gay Priests
Given the ruckus over Pope Francis’ comments on homosexuality, one could make the mistake of thinking he had announced a revolutionary change, not restated basic Christian doctrine: If a...
No Tears for Exodus
Some years ago, I read Alan Medinger’s book Growth into Manhood , written for Christians with unwanted same-sex attractions. Medinger, a giant in ex-gay circles, was the first Executive...
Called to Celibacy Unchosen
The crisis in family life which has convulsed the West since the 1960s has meant that a good portion of the Church’s teaching mission over recent years has been...
Can One Be Gay and Christian?
Is it possible to embrace a gay identity and be a faithful Christian? All parties in the recent debate here at First Things agree that lifelong marriage between one...
