Something unedifying is under way at the Church of Our Saviour, on lower Park Avenue in Manhattan. This alert from a knowledgeable source came Tuesday morning and has been circulating: I am informed that having [been] officially appointed Pastor of COS, Father Robbins is in the process of removing the other icons and also wants […]

I counted indulgences when I was a child. Quite likely, some of you did the same, though maybe not as fastidiously as I did. Every First Friday and First Saturday, there I was indemnifying myself against the wages of sin. My insurance agent was St. Helena’s Church on Olmstead Avenue alongside the IRT Pelham Line; […]

The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.                                                                         —Daniel J. Boorstin “Religions die.” Those two words open Philip Jenkins’ The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—and How It Died. It is a stark beginning. We […]

When did the online weather report become so rococo and alarmist? It was not until the ornate graphics reached critical mass that I started paying attention to the content’s mission creep. Garish and over-elaborate, Weather.com has swollen into the Gospel of Extreme Weather. The weekend began with Extreme Weather Events Will Be ‘Beyond Comprehension’ in […]

Fanaticism in matters of sacred art is an attitude that can lead to a decadence more sterile than the one we are now endeavoring to overcome. Maurice Lavanoux, “The Authentic Tradition and Art,,” Liturgical Arts (1954) This past Saturday I caught a late afternoon train into the city for the last night of One Faith, […]

Every First Things reader should spend a few minutes with Matt Ridley’s “The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science,” in the current issue [June 19, 2015] of Quadrant, Australia’s leading monthly. Neither the pope nor the encyclical are mentioned. Nevertheless, Ridley’s article is supremely relevant to a full grasp of what Laudato Si signifies.  His article […]

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