R. R. Reno

From Little Rock to Minneapolis

Recent reports and images from Minneapolis reminded me of Little Rock in 1957, where attempts were made to…
Patricia Snow portrait
Patricia Snow

The Lonely Passion of Reginald Pole

A year after I became a Catholic, when my teenaged son was thinking about college, we visited Georgetown…
George Weigel

The Evangelist in Stanley Prison

In a 1974 address to a group of lay Catholics, Pope Paul VI noted that “Modern man listens…
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The Failure of Bioethics

Gilbert Meilaender
When in April of 2025 the Hastings Center for Bioethics (the oldest bioethics think tank in this country) revealed its new five-year strategic plan, one of six “values” specified…

On the Pleasure of Admiring

Elizabeth C. Corey

The great essayist William Hazlitt observed that there is pleasure in hating. “Without something to hate,”…

AI as Liberation

Liel Leibovitz

You can learn everything you need to know about our collective state of mind from the fact…

Mark Twain’s Religion

Dwayne Eutsey

In 2014, when Kevin Malone’s opera Mysterious 44 premiered in Manchester, England, the production featured narrative voiceovers…

A Tale of Two Maybes

Ephraim Radner

“Who knows, God may yet repent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we perish not”…

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The First Things Podcast

Heritage and the Right

The editors discuss the troubles at Heritage, the conservative think tank whose president recently touched off a controversy by releasing a video statement in support of Tucker Carlson. The…

Conversations

Self-Destructive Liberalism (ft. Philip Pilkington)

In the ​latest installment of the ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein, Philip Pilkington joins in to discuss his recent book, The Collapse of Global Liberalism: And…

The Editor’s Desk

The Realities of Empire (ft. Nathan Pinkoski)

In this episode, Nathan Pinkoski joins R. R. Reno on The Editor’s Desk to talk about his recent review, “Hegemon or Empire?” from the January 2026 issue of the…
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On the Square MORE ON THE SQUARE

Against the Doctrine of Double Truth

Gerhard Cardinal Müller
The greatest danger I perceive to the new evangelization of the West, including of Germany, is the return of the doctrine of double truth, a belief that is of…

The Joy of Being a Hoosiers Fan

Patrick Hyde

Are you around at all for the next hour? Wanted to stop by with the trophy!” “I…

The Great Christian Reset

Jonathon Van Maren

If it is true that social shifts begin first among the elites, something may be stirring in…

The Viking History of Greenland

Bella M. Reyes

There was now much talk of looking for new lands.” This line from the thirteenth-century Icelandic Saga…

Of Roots and Adventures

Peter J. Leithart

I have lived in Ohio, Michigan, Georgia (twice), Pennsylvania, Alabama (also twice), England, and Idaho. I left…

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Essays MORE ESSAYS

The Lonely Passion of Reginald Pole

Patricia Snow

A year after I became a Catholic, when my teenaged son was thinking about college, we visited…

In the Footsteps of Aeneas

Spencer A. Klavan

Gian Lorenzo Bernini had only just turned twenty when he finished his sculpture of ­Aeneas, the mythical…

Cancer and the Cure of Souls

Charles Marie Rooney

I have cancer,” the elderly woman ­announced from her hospital bed high above York Avenue in Manhattan.…

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Can Liberals Be Pronatalists?

Darel E. Paul

Last year the United Nations Population Division predicted that global population will peak in approximately sixty years,…

True Humans

Stephen M. Barr

The Catholic Church never condemned the theory of evolution nor came close to doing so. One might…

The Theology of Roe

Matthew Schmitz

A controversial abortion case reaches the Supreme Court, and men in black robes impose their religious views…

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The Wallet

Jim Burrows

Oxblood, bifold, kept In a back bedroom Closet all these years, It dates to my time Of…

Another Madonna

William Virgil Davis

Many may not notice the young rabbit, caughtin the thicket of brush near the bottom left-hand corner,…

Birdwatching

J.C. Scharl

The people I want most to like all do it. I listen to their talk of swifts and…

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