Dressing for Others

by Br. Michael Baggot

No matter the reaction or the summer heat, I have never regretted wearing clerical garb publicly. Continue Reading »

17 Aug 2016

A Necessary, Neglected Conversation

by Jordan Zajac

“It is undeniable that religion informs public life, and we need to regain a sense of the ways in which this dynamic operates.” I scribbled these words in my Moleskine. Continue Reading »

15 Jun 2016

First Things, a Lifeline

by R. R. Reno

Ideas have consequences. They are also vehicles of truth, and of uplift. Continue Reading »

8 Jun 2016

Shying Away from Mercy

by Stephanos Bibas

Though mercy is a Christian virtue, our post-Christian society shies away from relying on it. Lenient criminal sentences, pardons, and debt forgiveness all seem to undercut the demands of justice and public safety. We now speak the language of rights, instead of mercy, to justify helping the needy. Social programs have displaced Christian charity, and generic ­do-gooder benevolence has sup­planted mercy.
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2 Feb 2016

Civil Society, Church, and State

by David T. Koyzis

Civil society does not represent an effort to “fix” something, whether it be the overweening state or the corrosive market. To think that it does is to miss the point.
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15 Oct 2015

Pauline “Demolition”

by Richard J. Mouw

We, a small group of theological educators, went to a Demolition Derby—a real one, with cars, and then trucks, smashing into each others in a muddy arena, and more than a thousand people watching from the grandstands. Continue Reading »

11 Aug 2015

Lessons in Statecraft

by George Weigel

When the Catholic Church celebrated the canonizations of Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII on April 27, 2014, the Church was not “making saints,” and neither was Pope Francis. Rather, the Church and the pope were recognizing two saints that God had made, publicly declaring its conviction . . . . Continue Reading »

1 May 2015

Licensing the Kingdom

by Nora Calhoun

St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality on the Lower East Side of Manhattan was one of the original communities f­ounded during the Depression by Dorothy Day and Peter ­Maurin. When I lived there a few years ago I observed up-close the often tense, sometimes funny interactions between the Catholic . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Apr 2015

Public Chastity, Private Chaos

by Mark Regnerus

Americans’ public and private lives are on a collision course. Our social system—the one we publicly engage daily—still unwittingly encourages and rewards chaste behavior (though perhaps not speech). Privately, our lives bespeak an emerging chaos, regardless of what we personally hold to be good or true or ideal. In other words, American life is becoming sexually bipolar. Continue Reading »

28 Jan 2015

We Have Never Been Modern

by Peter J. Leithart

Bruno Latour’s 1993 We Have Never Been Modern is a neglected masterpiece. Its argument is compressed, the terminology idiosyncratic. Latour is witty, ironic, and funniest when he’s outraged. It’s not an easy book, but it’s worth the effort. As a diagnosis of us “moderns,” it’s more penetrating, and rings truer, than many better-known works. Continue Reading »

19 Dec 2014