Joseph Bottum

Auschwitz is always a harsh lesson¯a slap, a rebuke, an indictment. This is a proof of what humans can do. This is a monument to what humans can be. There is no one who is not guilty, there is no one who is not shamed, there is no one who is not shown a mirror by that vile camp the Nazis built . . . . Continue Reading »

The New Yorker has noticed that Oriana Fallaci is not exactly what you might call a run-of-the-mill commentator on recent events. "At one point in The Rage and the Pride ," Margaret Talbot notes, Fallaci "complains about Somali Muslims leaving ‘yellow streaks of urine that . . . . Continue Reading »

Out in Orange County , they’re preaching fire and brimstone. "Rebellion, grave disobedience, and mortal sin," the pastor of St. Mary’s by the Sea in Huntington Beach, California, thundered to his congregation in the church bulletin. Now, ever since Jonathan Edwards preached . . . . Continue Reading »

An amazing story in the Guardian today: Patients who were unconscious for years, diagnosed as being in “persistent vegetative states” came awake when they were given a new experimental medication. As Wesley J. Smith emails to note, “They interacted with their environment. And . . . . Continue Reading »

Speaking of . . . um, that goofy book that we here at First Things decided we wouldn’t bother to mention, since everyone else in America would mock it all the way to the remainder tables at Bob’s Super-Saver Book Emporium. Of course, that plan didn’t work out so well: It ended up . . . . Continue Reading »

We are pleased to announce that we have hired Anthony Sacramone to be the new Managing Editor for First Things , beginning May 30. An editor with long experience as copy chief, proofreader, and managing editor in the publishing world, from Biography and Reader’s Digest to Beliefnet and . . . . Continue Reading »

A few years ago, when Daniel Goldhagen published A Moral Reckoning , his diatribe against all things Catholic, I predicted that the book would offer opportunities for writers who attacked Pius XII. What Goldhagen had done was set a new limit¯a far edge of fury that would allow any subsequent . . . . Continue Reading »

You probably read " Suing the Church ," an essay in the most recent issue of First Things in which Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver argues against attempts to suspend the statute of limitation in lawsuits against churches. Now a friend from Denver, Francis X. Maier, emails to say . . . . Continue Reading »

Jonah Goldberg notes this front-page Washington Post story about the history of American immigration¯essentially claiming that debates about immigration in the United States are unchanged from generation to generation, and that the current crop of immigrants is no different from any other crop . . . . Continue Reading »

For decades, one of the best ways to sell a movie was to say that it was being protested by Christians. It was a narrative, a useful trope, by which it was announced that an established story, known to all, was being replayed one more time: Brave, speaking-truth-to-power artist attacked by prissy, . . . . Continue Reading »