A submission to F IRST T HINGS came across my desk recently. It was about the excesses of a women’s-studies department at a major American university, and I tried to read it. I really did. I mean, it’s my job to look carefully at all this stuff, but, somehow, I just couldn’t get . . . . Continue Reading »
Some readers have taken sharp issue with my agreement with George Will, Thomas Derr, and a host of others that we should cultivate an informed skepticism about some of the more alarmist claims advanced by those warning us about global warming. One reader writes, “Of course there is . . . . Continue Reading »
Roger Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles has been both garnering praise and taking a drubbing for his somewhat melodramatic statements on immigration. A New York Times editorial lauded him for his boldness and his injection of a moral dimension in the political debate. Catholic bishops intervening in . . . . Continue Reading »
If you look over in the left-hand column of this web page, you’ll find a link for this¯a notice that the magazine is looking to hire a new managing editor to replace the estimable Erik Ross, who has decided to try new horizons in Poland. If you’ve ever dreamed of working at F IRST . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s common among Catholic commentators to look back on the era from the late 1930s to the early 1960s and see a great time of conversions in America and England. There was something in the air that was drawing secularly important or promising people to the Church. The list is well known, and . . . . Continue Reading »
Muriel Spark is gone , dying on Thursday at age eighty-eight, the last representative of Great Britain’s high literary converts before Vatican II. There’s a revealing moment toward the end of her 1992 memoir of her early career, Curriculum Vitae . Times were hard for her in 1953. She . . . . Continue Reading »
GOOD FRIDAY 2006 “Through Mary he received his humanity, and in receiving his humanity received humanity itself. Which is to say, through Mary he received us. In response to the angel’s strange announcement, Mary said yes. But only God knew that it would end up here at Golgotha, that it . . . . Continue Reading »
In Rome, the station church today is St. John Lateran, the parish church of the Bishop of Rome. I remember walking the station churches with the seminarians of the North American College. It was done with convivial solemnity, recalling what is to be recalled this day, reenacting what was enacted . . . . Continue Reading »
Moving to less controversial topics, George Will had a thoughtful column Sunday before last on new efforts to gin up the panic about global warming. He notes that Time magazine has this big issue declaring, “Be worried. Be very worried.” Will is amused by the piquant presumption that . . . . Continue Reading »
Mondays and Tuesdays are Joseph Bottum’s turns at this site, but he is sick in bed. Please join me in praying for his rapid recovery. Herewith an excerpt from a fine opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal by Fr. Thomas Williams, a seminary rector in Rome, on the kerfuffle over the National . . . . Continue Reading »
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