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The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy, and the American Future By Joshua Mitchell University of Chicago Press. 264 pages, $34.95. It is Tocqueville’s hour”again. Recently, the editor of a leading journal of opinion quipped that his magazine would soon be known as . . . . Continue Reading »

The Judicial Culture of Death Michael Uhlmann’s “The Legal Logic of Euthanasia” (June/July) is an outstanding essay on the two recent assisted-suicide decisions from the federal judiciary. I write with a few comments. The Second Circuit in Quill v. Vacco employed equal-protection . . . . Continue Reading »

Church Teaching Authority: Historical and Theological Studies By John P. Boyle University of Notre Dame Press, 241 pages, $38.95 In eight scholarly essays, framed by an introduction and a conclusion, Father Boyle examines aspects of the Church’s teaching office. The first chapter deals with . . . . Continue Reading »

Who Is Behind Physician-Assisted Suicide? Along with the editors of First Things , I deplore the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court (“The Ninth Circuit’s Fatal Overreach,” May) in its ruling that the Constitution grants a “liberty right” to physician-assisted suicide (PAS). It is a bad . . . . Continue Reading »

The Bible in Modern Culture: Theology and Historical-Critical Method from Spinoza to Kasemann. By Roy S. Harrisville and Walter Sundberg. Eerdmans, 282 pages, $20 paper. The aim of this book is to provide “a confessionally critical history of modern biblical criticism,” that is, “an analysis . . . . Continue Reading »

Getting Along In “Why We Can’t All Just Get Along” (February), Stanley Fish sets out to persuade people “of religious conviction” that we cannot be liberals”that we cannot subscribe to a regime of equal rights and freedom of speech and conscience. He says we . . . . Continue Reading »

The Life Of Adam Smith By Ian Simpson Ross Oxford/Clarendon Press, 495 pages, $35 Professor Ross, who teaches English at the University of British Columbia, briefly mentions in his introduction various fashionable literary methodologies, but he does so only to reject them as inappropriate to the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Mission of the Christian University Gertrude Himmelfarb and Richard John Neuhaus wisely note (“The Christian University,” January) that the ideals of a Christian university are complex ideals. For Himmelfarb, a university to be authentically Christian must nurture both intellectual . . . . Continue Reading »

A Troubled Conscience 1. Twenty-three years after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions, the conscience of the American people remains deeply troubled by the practice of abortion-on-demand. Because of these two decisions, abortion is legal at any time of pregnancy, for . . . . Continue Reading »

Half past two Wednesdays Catholic ”a fair number”would rise up in silence when their special buzzer jolted our Queens classroom, summons a good hour before our scheduled parole to their midweek Saint Teresa’s spiritual sparkle, a canny swap of Byrd’s tale of his schlep over . . . . Continue Reading »