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Religious Freedom Is the Soul of American Security

Christopher J. Motz

In the quiet sanctuary of West Point’s Old Cadet Chapel, a striking mural crowns the apse above the altar. Painted by Robert Weir and titled Peace and War, it...

Our Year in Booksโ€”2025

Various

First Things editors and writers share the most memorable books they read this year. R. R. RenoEditor Our political culture is changing. Book publishers are eager to put out...

Dark Phantoms

Mark Bauerlein

It happened quickly, so quickly that youโ€™d think it was impossible to retain the image. The Ohio Turnpike in October 2024, 5:30 a.m. and pitch-black, the road straight and...

Secularism, Security, and โ€œCivilizational Erasureโ€

George Weigel

Twenty years ago, I published a small book, The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God. It enjoyed a fair sale, got translated into French, Spanish,...

The Fertility Crisis Will Not Be Solved by Economics Alone

John M. Grondelski

The Westโ€™s demographic dearth is capturing the attention of growing numbers of public officials. Speaking on October 14 after a meeting with Italian president Sergio Mattarella, Pope Leo XIV...

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The Smiling Archbishop of New York

Raymond J. de Souza

More than sixteen years ago, on the morning of his installation Mass at St. Patrickโ€™s Cathedral in New York, an ebullient (when was he not?) Archbishop Timothy Dolan greeted...

John Wilsonโ€™s Year of Reading

John Wilson

This list would have been different a couple of months ago, or yesterdayโ€”maybe even in the wee hours tonightโ€”but here are some of the books I particularly enjoyed (excluding...

What Does โ€œPostliberalismโ€ Mean?

R. R. Reno

Many regard โ€œpostliberalismโ€ as a political program. In 1993, when the tide of globalized liberalism was at its highwater mark, the contrarian John Gray published Post-Liberalism: Studies in Political...

Divine Ballet

Nina Tarpley

This fall, Arthouse2B, in partnership with Ballet Hartford, hosted a performance named โ€œBallet and the Theology Withinโ€ in New York City. The Big Apple is known for its ballet:...

Wassailing at Christmas

Francis Young

Every year on January 17, revelers gather in an orchard near the Butcherโ€™s Arms in the Somerset village of Carhampton, in the Brendon Hills. There, โ€œwassailersโ€ walk between the trees, splashing them with cider...

Canadaโ€™s Combatting Hate Act Hates Religious Freedom

Anna Farrow

A new Canadian bill that seeks to strengthen existing hate speech law in the country has worrying implications for expressive and religious freedoms. Tabled in September, the Combatting Hate...

Keep Lighting Candles

Elizabeth Edwards Spalding

On December 23, 1981, President Ronald Reagan called for Americans to place a lighted candle in the window on Christmas Eve. He did so at the request of Romuald...

Make Me A Lutheran

Richard Rex

John Fisher, the renowned Bishop of Rochester, is known to history chiefly for having been put to death by King ยญHenry VIII...

What Vivek Gets Wrong About Citizenship

Colin Redemer

December is here. The air is chill, the leaves have fallen, and children are preparing for school break, looking forward to wrapping presents in the glow of a decorous...

Tucker and the Right

Glenn C. Loury

Something like a civil war is unfolding within the American conservative movement. It is not merely a dispute about policy agendas, foreign alliances, or the boundaries of political discourse. It is a deeper conflictโ€”a struggle over the meaning of conservatism itself...