U.S.

Choking on Rights Talk

(George Weigel. First Things)

In her prescient book Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse, Mary Ann Glendon of the Harvard Law School warned her fellow Americans in 1993 that our public life was being degraded by the promiscuous use of the language of “rights” as a rhetorical intensifier in campaigns to promote this, that, or the other thing

U.S.

Why Millennials Aren’t Having Children

(Luke Lyman. First Things)

Two beings are now only one, and it is when they are one that they become three.” So wrote Maurice Blondel on the topic of love and procreation. The formulation expresses a faith in and desire for fecundity that was once a given. Today, however, the response to this mysterious arithmetic among many Millennials is, essentially, That doesn’t add up. Hence, the much-discussed fertility crisis.

Netherlands

Kill healthy people from the Netherlands

(Sam Buntz. First Things).

On June 2, Zoraya ter Beek committed assisted suicide in the Netherlands at the age of twenty-nine. She was neither dying nor physically ill. Her motivation for suicide? “For me, autism is the major hiccup in my life. That bothers me the most.” She was estranged from her family, bullied at school, part of Goth subculture, and had been wearing a “Do Not Resuscitate” tag on her neck since she was twenty-two. A psychiatrist had informed her, “There’s nothing more we can do for you. It’s never going to get any better.”

Rising Anti-Semitism in the Anglosphere

(First Thinks. Melisa Langsam Braunstein).

Growing up Jewish in 1980s New York, I started learning about the Holocaust in kindergarten. But along with those loaded lessons came constant reassurances from Jewish day school teachers and communal leaders that it would happen “never again.” With the help of the global community, it seemed Jews had finally triumphed over the repeated horrors of Jewish history. That was a comforting message for children. Now, though, it looks like wishful thinking. History will likely frame the early twenty-first century as a hinge moment. After the Holocaust, overt anti-Semitism was stigmatized by democratic societies worldwide. Jews were optimistic that this represented a permanent, positive change. However, October 7 and its aftermath have proven otherwise. For global Jewry, this means confronting ugly truths, like the durability of Jew-hatred. But reality is quickly shifting around our non-Jewish neighbors, too.

Continue reading..

VATICAN II AND DIGNITAS INFINITA

(Thomas G. Guarino. First Things).

Even the casual reader of Dignitas Infinita (DI), the recent declaration by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, will likely be impressed by the 116 footnotes that accompany the text. The large number of citations indicates the Vatican’s desire to buttress its teaching with insights from thinkers both within and without the Church. It is encouraging to see a catena of ancient and modern philosophers and theologians cited, including Cicero, Boethius, Aquinas, Levinas, Rosmini, Newman, and Maritain. The point, of course, is that human dignity has been defended by a vast array of profound thinkers. Another major source for DI: the Vatican II debates over religious liberty that produced Dignitatis Humanae. Although Vatican II documents are only cited a few times in the declaration, I believe they had a deeper influence on this document than is visible on the surface. 

Continue reading…

ERASING CHRISTIANITY IN FRANCE

(Charlotte Allen. First Things).

In early March, the organizing committee for the upcoming Paris Olympics released its official promotional poster, featuring familiar Parisian landmarks—the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Dôme des Invalides—dropped into a brightly colored and surrealistic landscape of stadiums, Olympic rings, and cheering crowds. Something was conspicuously missing, though. The poster depicts the Dôme des Invalides, commissioned by Louis XIV and repository of Napoleon’s tomb, without the gilded Christian cross that has adorned its pinnacle since its construction in the late seventeenth century. Instead of a cross, the poster shows a simple spike, like the one on top of the Chrysler Building.

Continue reading…

RECOVERING OUR CHRISTIAN INTELLECTUAL TRADITION

(by Sam Zeno Conedera and Thomas Joseph White. First Things).-

Principles of Catholic Theology, Book 2: On the Rational Credibility of Christianityby Thomas Joseph White, O.P., was released on March 15. Sam Zeno Conedera, S.J., recently interviewed Fr. White about the book for First Things. The following has been edited for clarity and length. 

Continue reading…