It’s now 250 years since America declared her independence and embarked on the experiment of fashioning a nation dedicated to liberty. Do those long-ago events and the deliberations ...

Pope Leo XIV marked World Day Against the Death Penalty, observed on October 10, with the following message on X: The death penalty is inadmissible because it is ...

According to the online Encyclopedia Britannica, Sir Moses Montefiore (1784–1885) was “an Italian-born businessman who was noted for his philanthropy and support of Jewish rights.” In the England to ...

The editors discuss the NatCon in Jerusalem, the scandal at Cornell University and its broader implications, and whether AI could ever be considered to be conscious. Further reading: ...

I appreciate J. H. H. Weiler’s desire for God’s mercy to be extended to Gentiles and his commitment to Torah (“The Scandal of Jewish Belief,” August/September 2026). However, it ...

In his weekly catecheses on Vatican II, Pope Leo is now discussing Gaudium et Spes, one of the more controversial conciliar documents. Critics charged that, by revising its earlier condemnations of ...

A friend of mine asked a researcher at Anthropic whether Claude was conscious. He replied, “Are you talking about any single session of Claude, or the aggregation of all sessions?” My friend pressed, ...

The now-ubiquitous terms “reproductive health” and “reproductive freedom” have contributed mightily to a slaughter of the innocents in these United States. The death toll from that massacre is now ...

In this episode, First Things senior editor Dan Hitchens joins R. R. Reno on The Editor’s Desk to talk about his recent essay, “The Making of Roger Scruton,” from the October 2026 issue of the ...

At a semiannual conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, D. Todd Christofferson—one of the Church’s most senior leaders—declared forcefully that “gambling is morally wrong.” He ...

On September 4, the judge declared a mistrial in the Lindsay Clancy case, the result of one holdout juror who prevented a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. Given the 11–1 split, it is hard ...

Economic populists often tell a version of this story: In the working-class heyday that was the post–World War II economic model, a man could put a roof over his family’s head and food on the table on ...