R. R. Reno

A year or so ago I got together with some college friends. Good guys—careers, families, some churchgoers, others not, all involved in their communities. For the most part bourgeois in the best sense. But a few were perplexed. They wanted to know why I had become a social conservative. I . . . . Continue Reading »

Here in New York, as you might expect, the news of Osama bin Laden’s death was mostly greeted with fist-pumping expressions of satisfaction. Some, however, have expressed dismay. As our executive editor David Mills noted on these electronic pages, not a few European commentators have denounced the killing of Osama bin Laden as yet another example the cowboy mentality in America that shoots first and asks questions later. What we should have done, they say, is arrest bin Laden and put him on trial… . Continue Reading »

I spent Easter in Omaha. The Great Vigil liturgy at St. Cecilia’s Cathedral was transcendent, with the music of Vittoria, Palestrina, and Byrd providing exquisite accents to contemporary plainsong. But it’s the beginning that always hits me in the gut. My heart beat faster with each urgent declamation of the Exsultet, the ancient hymn sung after the procession of the paschal candle that culminate: “This is the night when Jesus Christ broke the chains of death and rose triumphant from the grave.” … Continue Reading »

Over at Public Discourse today, Matthew Franck provides a perceptive analysis of a recent episode of politically correct intimidation: ” Same-Sex Marriage and the Assault on Institutional Integrity .” A gay rights group put pressure on King & Spaulding, a prominent Atlanta law firm, to . . . . Continue Reading »

Of theology, that is. The Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is hosting a conference in September, ” The Intellectual Tasks of the New Evangelization .” The purpose? “The Committee hopes this conference will provide an occasion to build . . . . Continue Reading »

On April 14, in Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Obama a three-judge panel from the U.S. Seventh Circuit overturned a lower court ruling that a 1998 statute designating the first Thursday in May as the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. Meanwhile, earlier this month, in Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, the Supreme Court handed down an important decision allowing an Arizona tax policy that ends up providing financial help to private schools, including religious ones, to continue… Continue Reading »

Sam Harris is the poor man’s Richard Dawkins, and he was recently at Notre Dame University to debate whether or not God is the source of morality. In an amusing and at time affecting meditation on the entire phenomenon of our Latter Day Atheists and their determined efforts to set science . . . . Continue Reading »

What makes First Things First Things? It’s a question I’ve puzzled over during the decade or so that I’ve been associated with the magazine. The question has become quite a bit more urgent for me in the last couple months. Being appointed the new editor wonderfully concentrates the mind. The first thing to say about First Things is that it stands for the conviction … . Continue Reading »

American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us by Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell Simon & Schuster, 688 pages, $30 Ah, America. Where else in the postmodern West can you find snake-handling preachers; earnest middle-aged women at Unitarian churches who talk about astrology; . . . . Continue Reading »

From the very outset of the order, people have been criticizing the Jesuits. The Society of Jesus has long tended toward extremes that raise hackles. I’m no exception, I suppose, having skewered a few of the liberal Jesuits over the years, most recently Fr. Jim Keenan and Fr. Mark Massa, a . . . . Continue Reading »