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Married up

The bride and groom met through work. They are both editors at First Things, a journal about religion and public life, in New York.
nytimes.com

Mother Teresa on abortion:

“The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father’s role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts—a child—as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters. And, in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners.”

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“We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until every unborn child is protected in law and welcomed in life.”—Richard John Neuhaus

The following address, described by Robert P. George as “the greatest pro-life speech ever . . . .
firstthings.com

Snowball fight in St. Peter’s Square, 1956 via New Liturgical Movement

Image may contain: 3 people, people standing, snow and outdoor

A letters exchange from the Catholic Herald that I republish for those interested in JF Powers:

Below is a letters exchange from the Catholic Herald that I republish for those interested in JF Powers.—MS SIR – I am writing in reply to Matthew Schmitz’s article, “A beautiful Church for the poor”...
matthewschmitz.tumblr.com

Steven Spielberg and Harvey Weinstein have both been planning films on the explosive Mortara Case. Romanus Cessario argues that Pius IX—usually seen as the story’s villain—was right. And he raises a fundamental question: “Should putative civil liberties trump the requirements of faith?”

Kidnapped by the Vatican? The Unpublished Memoirs of Edgardo Mortaraby vittorio . . . .
firstthings.com

“Sexual morality is integral to the Christian vision of redemption.” A great essay by the great Kyle Harper:

Epictetus was the sort of figure that only the Roman Empire could have produced. He was born in the . . . .
firstthings.com

Glad to see this listed as one of First Things’s most popular articles for 2017.

A top article from 2017: The HBO series “The Young Pope” depicts a Church that no longer seeks the favor of the world—and is all the more fabulous for it.

The Young Pope depicts a Church that no longer seeks the favor of the world—and is all the . . . .
firstthings.com

In 1966, Christopher Derrick anticipated the gulf that would emerge between the generation of Vatican II and those that would follow. Here is his brilliant explanation of why the Vatican II era must end.

The ark of the Church goes floating down the centuries, having only the task of staying afloat until the waters subside—certain to disappoint those who want the thrill of a speedboat trip.
firstthings.com

“I am a Catholic. I believe that true cinema is necessarily a Christian cinema, because there is no truth except in Christianity. I believe in the genius of Christianity, and there is not a single great film in the history of cinema that is not infused with the light of the Christian idea. A mystical cinema? Yes, if it is true that a clear grasp of immanence leads to transcendence.”—Eric Rohmer

Eric Rohmer, a devout Catholic, saw film as a ’20th-century cathedral’. He made a sublime Christmas movie, too
catholicherald.co.uk

Neuhaus warned us that people were losing faith in democracy. He was right.

As the Berlin Wall fell, Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the end of history—“the . . . .
firstthings.com

Michael Sean Winters doesn’t like my last column—which is fair enough! What astounds me is his breezy dismissal of St. Pius X.

Matthew Schmitz, the senior editor at First Things, writes the most psychologically revealing pieces, but that is only part of his problem. The larger difficulty, at least for me, is his ignorance of ...
ncronline.org

Some people have a quaint idea that a bishop should say what is right and wrong, in season and out. Blase Cupich is beyond all that.

Archbishop Blase Cupich pretends to be a friend to people who need a father.
firstthings.com

How arrogant do you have to be to attempt a takedown of the Sermon on the Mount? Colin McGinn attacks what he calls “a mishmash of antiquated, peculiar, and dubious pronouncements.”

"The Sermon on the Mount October 31, 2017\/0 Comments\/in Uncategorized \/by Colin McGinn\u00a0Is there any evidence of Jesus\u2019 divinity in the passages known as the Sermon on the Mount? If his moral teachings reflected some kind of divine infallibility, we would expect these teachings to expres...
colinmcginn.net

“A theological discernment enables us to see in our time two unexpected threats, almost like two apocalyptic beasts, located on opposite poles: on the one hand, the idolatry of Western freedom; on the other, Islamic fundamentalism: atheistic secularism versus religious fanaticism. To use a slogan, we find ourselves between gender ideology and ISIS. Islamic massacres and libertarian demands regularly contend for the front page of the newspapers.” —Cardinal Robert Sarah

While punching a Catholic bully, I ceased to be a Protestant.

Stanley Hauerwas says that his students “convert because Catholicism is an intellectually rich theological tradition better able to negotiate the acids of our culture.” Speaking for myself, I didn’t convert in order to participate in a rich intellectual tradition (after all, one can spend a whole life reading Aquinas and Augustine without submitting to the Church’s discipline—and many do just that). No, I joined the Church so that I might be saved.

Roman Catholicism is rich and vibrant. But someone has to keep the Church honest.
washingtonpost.com