If Catholic Republicans accept the logic that abstention is almost always a selfish and unjustified act of free-riding, then they admit that they have no exit threat and undermine the incentive for a candidate like Trump to respond to their complaints. They need the exit threat as a bargaining chip. And the exit threat will be credible only if the voters are actually willing to use it. Continue Reading »
Here's an event announcement that will interest readers of First Things in the New York area. On Thursday evening, October 20, Stanford Law Professor Michael McConnell (left) will deliver a lecture, “Tradition and the Constitution,” to inaugurate the Tradition Project, a new research initiative of the St. John's University Center for Law and Religion. Continue Reading »
The real problem with the Argentine norms is their deviation from this larger and more fundamental principle: that grace truly sanctifies and liberates, and that baptized Christians are always free to fulfill the moral law, even when they fail to do so. Jesus Christ holds us to this standard in the Gospel. It is presumptuous of Francis—however benign his intentions—to decide that his version of “mercy” trumps that given by God himself. Continue Reading »
The September 14 liturgical feast of the Triumph of the Cross celebrates a radical revolution in our approach to human debility. The lame, the disfigured, the abandoned are no longer burdens upon society’s limited resources, doomed to a frustrated existence. Instead, they can clutch the cross that recalls the one who knows their woes and gives meaning to their anguish. Continue Reading »
Basket of Deplorables. So canned and promiscuous a characterization does precisely what progressives such as Mrs. Clinton claim the bigots do: generalize and demonize others to the point of dehumanization. Continue Reading »
The conversation on Amoris Laetitia continues. All the language used by Francis of “integrating” the remarried into the Church originates in the reforms of Pope John Paul II. Continue Reading »
One of the intelligent people who seemed to share Scalia’s view of the Devil was Whittaker Chambers, the brilliant writer, ex-Soviet espionage agent, and Time magazine editor, who in February 1948 wrote an essay in Life magazine about a New Year’s Eve conversation between a pessimist and Satan. Continue Reading »
Incestuous relationships between adults should push the issue of consent and its many complexities and weaknesses to the fore in debates about sexual morality and marriage. Continue Reading »
Buried somewhere under all the debris, we saw the common good. Continue Reading »
It is a common thesis that the social/sexual changes of recent years are the flowering of the Sixties. This makes the best commentators and essayists of that era worth rereading. Continue Reading »
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