♦ Above, I do my best to explain St. Paul’s reflections on the theological significance of Jewish unbelief, which are different from his many treatments of the vexed question of circumcision and other ritual observances among those who believe in Jesus. (Those matters preoccupy Paul in his Letter to the Galatians.) Romans 9–11 is a long passage, the very length indicating the importance of the issue. Far longer and more daunting is the Gospel of John. The fourth Gospel is haunted by “the Jews,” a collective term rarely used in the synoptic Gospels. They are a spiritual force bearing down upon the Son of God. Many modern commentators regret the Johannine talk of “the Jews,” judging that it contributed to Christian anti-Semitism over the centuries, as it almost certainly did. But there’s another aspect, which echoes the mystery of Jewish unbelief, over which Paul ultimately expressed praise and wonder. The Gospel of John is widely regarded as the source of “high Christology.” The Gospel opens with a cosmic frame of reference, and in its extended account of Jesus’s final teaching to his disciples, it takes readers into the mystery of the Son’s mission from the Father. Furthermore, it is telling that, of the four Gospels, only John’s depicts Jesus as commanding his own destiny. The triumph of the cross is explicit and visible. Therefore, rather than trying to minimize the role of “the Jews” in the Gospel of John, as many who worry about anti-Semitism do, we should take a hint from Romans 9–11. The pressure of “the Jews”—those to whom the messiah was sent but who will reject him—amounts to a felix culpa, a blessed trespass. It bears the fruit of revelation, a full unveiling of the glory of the Word become flesh, who has made known the Father (see John 1:14–18).
♦ The Trump administration released a big tranche of the Jeffrey Epstein files. One of the revealed emails attracted my attention. It’s from Robert Kuhn. Apparently, Epstein had urged him to read “The Divine Music of Mathematics,” a First Things article by David P. Goldman (April 2012). Kuhn tells Epstein that he loved the essay, and he goes on to say, “I subscribe to First Things (best intellectual conservative Catholic magazine), which I balance with Jewish neo-con Commentary.” I appreciate the accuracy of Kuhn’s characterization of First Things as “best intellectual conservative” magazine, but I must correct the misconception that our publication is “Catholic.” First Things is admittedly influential in debates about matters Catholic, but we’re an ecumenical and interreligious publication.
♦ I recently received a notice from Wendy Raymond, the president of my alma mater, Haverford College. “Some members of our community,” she says, are demanding a change in the name of the main library on campus. The building was recently renovated. It was renamed the Allison & Howard Lutnick Library in honor of Commerce Secretary Lutnick and his wife. They are the most prolific benefactors in the college’s history, having donated more than $65 million over the years, $25 million of which paid for the library’s renovation. Activist faculty and students are exploiting Lutnick’s connections with Jeffrey Epstein to strike a blow against the wickedness and snares of the Trumpian devil. A student newspaper editorial pronounced it “incredibly troubling” that a campus building bears the name of someone occupying a “senior position in an administration that has repeatedly attacked healthcare and social services, weaponized military and law enforcement agencies against communities, and demonized entire populations, including but not limited to immigrants, BIPOC, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and women.” That’s quite a bill of indictment. President Raymond assures me that she and her team “are monitoring the situation,” which she piously describes as a moment of “ethical complexity and disagreement.” Rest assured, “constructive conversations” are underway, and “thought partners” have been engaged. It’s difficult to know which aspect of this communication is more dispiriting: the den mother tone of practiced empathy or the description of left-wing ideological panic as a matter of “ethical complexity.”
♦ Martin Luther: “No man can be thoroughly humbled until he knows that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, devices, endeavors, will, and works, and depends entirely on the choice, will, and work of another, namely, of God alone.” True, and our complete dependence on God for our salvation ought to motivate us to employ all our powers, devices, endeavors, will, and works to do as he commands. As Jesus urges: “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
♦ C. S. Lewis on clergy who fiddle with the liturgy and otherwise seek to “update” worship: “The charge to Peter was ‘Feed my sheep’; not ‘Try experiments on my rats,’ or even, ‘Teach my performing dogs new tricks.’”
♦ In early February, Quentin Deranque, a university student in Lyon, was killed by an antifa gang. Those responsible for his death were not obscure radicals. In a First Things report (“Murder in Lyon”), Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry notes that the killers were closely linked to France’s far-left party, La France Insoumise (LFI), which holds 71 seats in the National Assembly.
Much as in the United States, you don’t have to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to find links between these violent left-wing extremist groups and the established political left. The key nexus is a man named Raphaël Arnault, who founded the violent “Jeune Garde Antifasciste” (“Antifascist Young Guard”) before his election to Parliament under the banner of LFI. One of the men arrested, Jacques-Elie Favrot, was a parliamentary assistant to Arnault on the day of his arrest. Another, whose name has not been released, has been described as also working as a parliamentary assistant. A third was a former intern in the Parliament. All worked for LFI.
In the United States, the connections don’t run directly through congressional offices. Rather, a web of NGOs, many funded by state and local governments, employ activists and subsidize the infrastructure for left-wing protests. (Park MacDougald provides a detailed account of this network in his May 6, 2024, Tablet essay, “The People Setting America on Fire.”) Gobry is encouraged by the quick and unified response of French elites, who denounced the murder and stood behind the pledge by government authorities to crack down on far-left violence. May we be so fortunate.
♦ “Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.” The line comes from T. S. Eliot’s famous essay, “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” Eliot urges the poet to work under the weight of tradition (or, better, as he later came to believe, under the commandments of God). Only then can the poet have a voice that is not merely an echo of his own inner life.
♦ Is anti-Semitism on the rise among Gen-Z Catholics? I think the answer is “yes and no.” There’s evidence on the internet that old anti-Semitic tropes are being revived. At a February conference in Nashville hosted by the Judeo-Christian Zionist Congress, Ryan Anderson made an important point when he observed that the rising generation is suspicious of Baby Boomer culture, including Baby Boomer Catholicism, which they think sold out to secular modernity. In reaction, ardent young Catholics often reject “every modern development of the Church, including her more recent teachings about Judaism and the Jewish people.” The upshot is best described as anti-anti-Semitism, just as flirtation with Nazi symbols and slogans is anti-anti-fascism. (For a full account of the conference, see Peter Savodnik’s report, “Inside the Christian Civil War over Antisemitism,” The Free Press, February 22, 2026.)
♦ There’s another explanation of rising anti-Semitism and the closely related transgressions of a once rock-solid consensus about the evils of racism and Nazism. A friend calls it “vice-signaling,” a ritual performance that indicates that you oppose those who virtue signal.
♦ Writing in The Lamp, Jude Russo observes the peril of having AI write your columns or news reports. He notes, “If making money is what you want to do, there are better ways than journalism.” The most precious compensation is not monetary. “The recompense is that you are doing something that you would want to be doing anyway: scribbling, seeing new things, talking to new people.” He goes on to note that AI dependence is likely to degrade journalistic virtues, which revolve around “clarity of observation, thought, and communication.” Yes, and there’s a personal danger as well. When an AI assistant takes over some of the very things that drew you into the foolish ambition to make writing pay, pride in craft will decline, and you’ll just be a wage slave among wage slaves.
♦ The historian John Lukacs was a wry observer of the contemporary scene, about which he was unsparing in his judgments. From his diary (as reported in the last of his many wise memoirs, Last Rites): “Result of civilizational degeneration: while a young fool would still not mind it if someone would call him a gentleman, no young woman now wants to be called a lady.”
♦ From a Pew Research Center report released in early February:
The Border Patrol recorded 237,538 encounters with migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in the 2025 fiscal year, which began in October 2024 and ended in September 2025. That was down from more than 1.5 million encounters in fiscal 2024, more than 2 million in fiscal 2023 and a record of more than 2.2 million in fiscal 2022. The 2025 total was the lowest in any fiscal year since 1970.
I agree with those who criticize some of the tactics used by the Trump administration to arrest and deport, which can be too aggressive and indiscriminate. But a fair-minded person must allow that the administration’s vigorous efforts have contributed mightily to the dramatic decline in illegal border crossings. When the lack of enforcement signals, “If you come, you can stay,” more will come. When the signal is “If you come, you’ll be deported,” fewer will come.
♦ New York City received some major snowstorms this winter. Because I walk to work, I find the storms enjoyable rather than disruptive. Gotham paralyzed by a foot of snow has a special charm. My beloved Mabel, a miniature dachshund who accompanies me to work every day, is less keen. She’s a heroic animal, as anyone subjected to her bark must agree. But her short legs are not built for snow. The pathetic look on her face as she casts her eyes toward me after wading through deep slush at a streetcorner melts my already dog-smitten heart. I’ve reconciled myself to the proposition that, on snow days, Mabel works from home.
♦ I’ve mentioned our newsletter program in the past, funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. Two have been launched, one surveying the Catholic scene (fourthwatchcatholic.com) and the other the Protestant scene (protestantmind.com). I’m pleased to announce that our third newsletter, written by J. J. Kimche and called “The Jew from Nowhere,” will be available March 18. You can sign up to receive the twice-monthly newsletter at jewfromnowhere.com.
♦ Two readers are seeking to form a ROFTers group, which for the uninitiated means a group of readers of First Things that gathers monthly to discuss the most recent issue.
Cody Bell in Tucson, Arizona. To join, contact him at codybell1@gmail.com.
Joe Bonar in Pittsburgh, PA. To join, contact him at pittsburghrofters@gmail.com.
