Archive


More than thirty-five years of First Things articles at your fingertips

Articles

Filter

Articles

Candace Owens and the Sin of Anti-Semitism

George Weigel

According to the online Encyclopedia Britannica, Sir Moses Montefiore (1784–1885) was “an Italian-born businessman who was noted for his philanthropy and support of Jewish rights.” In the England...

Reflections on a Diamond Jubilee

George Weigel

I am not usually given to apocalypticism, but I think I got the imagery exactly right when, in 2001, I called my brother and described the ruins left by...

A Terrible Coarsening

George Weigel

The now-ubiquitous terms “reproductive health” and “reproductive freedom” have contributed mightily to a slaughter of the innocents in these United States. The death toll from that massacre is now...

The Dead End of the Partisan Church

George Weigel

Route 132 along the north shore of Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula offers one of the most scenic vistas in North America. To one’s left, the extraordinary St. Lawrence River can...

The Vatican and Russia

George Weigel

Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Holy See’s “foreign minister” (Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, to use the official title), visited Moscow from August 24–28, meeting with senior...

Unlearned Lessons of 9/11, a Quarter-Century Later

George Weigel

Several weeks after Islamist terrorists hijacked four planes, wreaking havoc in lower Manhattan and at the Pentagon in the name of deranged religious convictions, I was at dinner in the papal apartment...

A Great Teacher and a Welcome Manifesto

George Weigel

Reluctant as I am to fiddle with the U.S. Constitution, I’m willing to consider an amendment banning any elementary school from opening before Labor Day.  That’s the way things...

The Best Film Ever?

George Weigel

Nineteen sixty-six was great for movies, and six decades later, the five nominated for Best Picture at the thirty-ninth Academy Awards the following year are all still worth watching:...

Stories That Tell the U.S. Catholic Story

George Weigel

Fiction can often convey the human texture of a time and place better than scholarly works of history. Herewith, and in honor of the national semiquincentennial, some novels that...

Spiraling Down in Speyer

George Weigel

Speyer is a charming city on the west bank of the Rhine River. Its splendid medieval core is dominated by a magnificent eleventh-century cathedral, the resting place of German...

The Work Ethic Incarnate

George Weigel

In his June 2 Wall Street Journal column, Jason L. Riley noted a disturbing trend in our American moment: “According to the Department of Labor, 1 in 3 men...

The Summer Reading List: 2026

George Weigel

A 2025 YouGov poll revealed some interesting factoids about Americans’ reading habits—or lack thereof. Forty percent of us didn’t read a book last year. About a quarter of the...

Ukraine and the Limits of Dialogue

George Weigel

For months now, I have been receiving alarming, early-morning text messages from Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halyč, leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The texts are typically...

World Cup Blues, of a Sort

George Weigel

CRACOW. I usually find the quadrennial FIFA World Cup aggravating for the five reasons enumerated below, plus one other: My students here in the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the...

Remembering Robert Wilken

George Weigel

Robert Louis Wilken—radical Christian disciple, devoted husband and father, distinguished patristics scholar, elegant writer, serious baseball guy—died on June 6, a few months short of age ninety. Curiously enough,...