Bianca Czaderna

You may have read Randy Boyagoda’s fine biography of Richard John Neuhaus, our fearless founder. You may know that First Things was begun in 1990 to explore questions of religion and society in the English-speaking world, and that the print journal comes out ten times a year. You might even have . . . . Continue Reading »

God or Nothing: A Conversation on Faithby robert cardinal sarahinterviewed by nicolas diatignatius, 285 pages, $17.95 On the night of April 18, 1978, a visitor brought an ­unexpected message to a young priest named Robert Sarah: Pope Paul VI had appointed him archbishop of Conakry and expected a . . . . Continue Reading »

Saint Paul Lives Here (In Minnesota)by zach czaiawipf and stock, 66 pages, $7.50 A fter years of controversy over the mishandling of sexual predators among the priests of his archdiocese, Archbishop of Minneapolis-St. Paul John Nienstedt resigned last June. Now facing criminal prosecution, the . . . . Continue Reading »

In the first pages of We Have Been Friends Together, Raïssa ­Maritain recounts one of her earliest memories. She is five, and her parents have rented a room in their house to a woman who holds classes for young children. She remembers watching this strange woman from afar with hushed reverence: “I heard the multiplication table being repeated . . . and I was overwhelmed with the feeling that here was instruction and knowledge and a truth to be known; and my heart almost burst with the desire to know.” . . . . Continue Reading »

Everyone’s talking about marriage these days. Even those who don’t believe in it are talking about it all the time. The definition of marriage, the future of marriage, gay marriage, divorce and remarriage, when to get married, how to be married, how to stay married. It’s simultaneously being . . . . Continue Reading »

My weight is my love. Wherever I am carried, my love is carrying me.­–Augustine, Confessions What do you want? This is the fundamental question of Christian discipleship. Christ asks two future disciples quite pointedly in the Gospel of John, and asks it indirectly in a number of places: “Will . . . . Continue Reading »

Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, a Catholic nun and the only woman in the history of television to found and a lead a cable network for twenty years, died yesterday, Easter Sunday, at age ninety-two.After entering the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration, a Franciscan religious order, in . . . . Continue Reading »

What is the role of the icon painter? We can only begin to answer this question by turning to the fact of the Incarnation—“And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Christ is the “icon of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). It is because the second person of the Trinity . . . . Continue Reading »

Some of my fellow staff members here at First Things have written reflections on what sets First Things apart for them, and why our magazine is worthy of support—see Matthew Schmitz’s, Alexi Sargeant’s, and Carl Trueman’s here. They’ve covered a lot of ground. I will add this: There is a . . . . Continue Reading »

As I took the plane to South Bend for this Fall's Center for Ethics and Culture conference, I wondered how exactly “freedom” would be spoken of.