Dylann Storm Roof, whose birthday is April 3, had just barely turned twenty-one. Twenty-one used to be the age of legal majority in America—the age at which society allowed one to vote, enter into a contract with someone else, get married without parental consent, drive a car, go to war. “I'm . . . . Continue Reading »
When the Pope’s highly anticipated encyclical, Laudato Si finally appeared, Detroit’s Archbishop Allen Vigneron summed up its significance by calling it “a moment of grace.”The new encyclical has been widely described as “the pope’s encyclical on climate change.” But one shouldn’t be . . . . Continue Reading »
A First Things symposium on how to respond to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell. Continue Reading »
A few years ago, I spoke about end-of-life care at a town-hall event; it quickly devolved into an intense debate on assisted suicide. When the time came for audience questions, a self-described “mentally ill” woman took the microphone and declared that she had a right to doctor-prescribed death. More than half the audience burst into applause. Continue Reading »
With the publication of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to A Meaningful Life, William Deresiewicz's sober assessment of contemporary higher education was both praised and lampooned by commentators across the spectrum. He recently spoke with First Things about . . . . Continue Reading »
The following letter from Archbishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS), is a response to an article written by Stefanno Gennarini. The format of the letter was a paragraph-by-paragraph response to the article, and thus for clarity, we . . . . Continue Reading »
Eleven percent of New Hampshire's conservatives favor crony capitalist, eminent domain abuser, supporter of single-payer health care, and all-around-buffoon, Donald Trump for president. But they don't really. A fraction of the Republican electorate is having some weird fun with the conventions and . . . . Continue Reading »
Fifty years ago, prior to my freshman year at Baltimore’s St. Paul Latin High School, the late Fr. W. Vincent Bechtel introduced me to The Summer Reading List, upper-case. Fr. Bechtel didn’t fool around: He tossed his teenage charges into the deep end of the English and American literature pool . . . . Continue Reading »
We are relearning that marriage is not optional. The evidence started piling up in 1965 with Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s report on the breakdown of the African-American family. In 2012, Charles Murray took us on a walk through Fishtown where we met a white (often non-)working class. In 2014, Kevin . . . . Continue Reading »
Two questions underlie this study of the months leading up to the American Civil War: 1) At what point, if any, was Abraham Lincoln morally justified in fighting the Confederacy? and 2) Could an agreement have been reached that would have prevented the Civil War? Continue Reading »
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