Advance notice for next January’s New York Encounter , a three-day conference sponsored by the Catholic group Communion and Liberation. It will be held in New York January 17th to 19th and is, very nicely, free. Among the highlights are a talk on alienated youth by Christian Smith, the Notre Dame sociologist who’s led several important studies on the spiritual life of youth, an interview with Sean Cardinal O’Malley, and a report on the work of Vaclav Havel by the president of the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation.
Several of us here went to the events last year and much enjoyed them. They are now available . Of the ones I could get to, particularly good were The Story of Shahbaz Bhatti , about the murdered Christian who served as Pakistan’s minister for minority affairs; Liberty in Modern and Contemporary Art by Francis Greene of St. Francis College in Brooklyn; and Desire, Liberty, and Satisfaction by the Irish journalist John Waters.
You have a decision to make: double or nothing.
For this week only, a generous supporter has offered to fully match all new and increased donations to First Things up to $60,000.
In other words, your gift of $50 unlocks $100 for First Things, your gift of $100 unlocks $200, and so on, up to a total of $120,000. But if you don’t give, nothing.
So what will it be, dear reader: double, or nothing?
Make your year-end gift go twice as far for First Things by giving now.
