Earlier this summer, in the spot on the Sea of Galilee traditionally hailed as the site of Christ’s feeding of the five thousand, the Roman Catholic Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes in Tabgha, Israel, was torched in an arson attack. And as of Thursday, three young right-wing Jewish men—Yinon Reuveni, twenty, Yehuda Asraf, nineteen, and Moshe Orbach, twenty-four—have been indicted on suspicion of responsibility. Continue Reading »
On Catholic campuses that aspire to Top Ten or Top Twenty status in publicity sweepstakes like the U.S. News and World Report college rankings, one sometimes hears the phrase “preferred peers.” Translated into plain English from faux-sociologese, that means the schools to which we’d like to be compared (and be ranked with). At a major Catholic institution like the University of Notre Dame, for example, administrators use the term “preferred peers” to refer to universities like Duke, Stanford, and Princeton, suggesting that these are the benchmarks by which Notre Dame measures its own aspirations to excellence. Continue Reading »
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 »
Though already the leader of Word on Fire Ministries in Chicago and rector of nearby Mundelein Seminary, Father Barron has recently been asked by Pope Francis to take on the new challenge of becoming an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles. Though it came as an “an enormous surprise,” and he will miss no longer leading Mundelein, Barron has accepted “with a humble and joyful heart.” Continue Reading »
Killing has dominated the news for the last few weeks. An angry debate has raged juxtaposing the harvesting of fetal body parts by Planned Parenthood abortionists with the trophy hunting of “Cecil” the Zimbabwean lion. Both stories provide fascinating insights into our society’s moral state. Continue Reading »
In 1965, the U.S. Congress made a seismic decision. Faced with the disenfranchisement of black voters on the one hand, and a Constitutional mandate to maintain equal sovereignty among the states on the other, Congress decided that jurisdictions with histories of racial discrimination at the polls should be compelled to seek “preclearance” from federal authorities any time they wished to change their voting procedures. Continue Reading »
The Planned Parenthood videos are a far more important story than the Donald Trump nonsense. Whether by Columbus Day, or Thanksgiving, or Valentine's Day, the Trump campaign will be over due to declining poll ratings or defeat in delegate selection contests. The Planned Parenthood videos and, just as important, the reaction of liberal elites to the Planned Parenthood videos demonstrate the enormous obstacles and the equally enormous opportunities that conservatives face in reaching a large fraction of the American public. How we overcome those obstacles—or fail to—will determine the course of American politics and society. Continue Reading »
A Will to Believe: Shakespeare and Religion by david scott kastan oxford university press, 155 pages, $40.00If Zeno were to write Shakespeare criticism, he might sound a little like David Scott Kastan. The George M. Bodman Professor of English at Yale University’s meticulous, short book on . . . . Continue Reading »
Queried about the Holy See’s less-than-vigorous response to Russian aggression in Ukraine, senior Vatican officials are given to saying (often with a dismissive tone, as if the question came from a dim-wit), “We take the long view.”
The lecturer was setting forth a biblical perspective on the role of government, with special attention to the Pauline text in Romans 13. At one point he introduced a rhetorical flourish with a passing negative reference to John Locke. The Bible sees the authority to govern as coming from God—“and not,” the lecturer said, “from a human contract, as John Locke insisted.” Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
