At the beginning of his 2020 encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis speaks of “an episode in the life of St. Francis that shows his openness of heart, which knew no bounds and transcended ...

I learned a new word the other day: déploration. It’s the French, directly from the Latin, for “lament.” But as a term for a specific musical genre, it was novel to me. I came across this use of ...

As the postwar era draws to an end, some Christians continue to reach for analogies to the 1930s. Social decay recalls Weimar; populist political movements and demagogues are 1933 all over again; ...

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 of men who wore ...

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Michel Foucault. He was influential in his lifetime, but forty-two years after his death, while contemporaries such as Derrida have faded from view, ...

Who is our Odysseus? Or more precisely, who is the most Odyssean hero of American film? Matt Damon’s mopey trauma patient? Certainly not. Luke Skywalker, perhaps? No, too obnoxious and too chaste—an ...

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 an attack on the inviolability and ...

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 Second World War left Europe invaded and ruined, divided between Soviet and American occupations. Hitler’s defeat represented a “triumph and tragedy”—the title Winston Churchill took for the final ...

We welcome letters to the editor. Letters appear two issues after the article to which they are responding. Letters under three hundred words are preferred, and they may be edited for length and ...

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.

In mid-September, I joined a lunch with the leaders of a village in Syunik, southern Armenia. The president of neighboring Azerbaijan has been threatening for several years to “return” this region to ...