Michael Novak strikes again

If you haven’t head of First Things or have heard of it but simply haven’t taken the time to sit down and read it, you are missing out.

First Things is a religious and philosophical journal editied by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. Depending upon your view of all things orthodox, Fr. Neuhaus and his comtemporaries such as Novak, Weigel, and most of what is called the “neoconservative right” find a home here.

Michael Novak has an excellent article on the Founding Fathers and their concepts of religious freedom, specifically pertaining to Virginia’s experience entitled “Faith of the Founding.” Another excellent article in this months First Things is Fr. Neuhaus’ The Catholic Center:

It is no secret that the initiative today is with the center. For younger clergy and seminarians, the so–called bad old days are the olden days that their grandparents talked about. They are inspired by John Paul II, the only pope they have ever known, as are the many renewal movements that feed into and draw from the millions of young people gathered by, for instance, the World Youth Days. Chancel dancers in leotards and Clown Masses are increasingly a thing of the past. The silly season is almost over, although elements of the discontinuant right find it useful to generate outrage by pretending that it is still in full swing. For its annual trips down the memory lane of radicalisms past, Call to Action will soon be convening in Florida. True, what passes for theology in many nominally Catholic colleges is a tiresome deconstruction of orthodoxy, but that, I expect, leads many students to want to explore an orthodoxy that they never learned and is deemed worthy of such intense attack. In Washington, D.C., in New York, in Boston, and elsewhere, there are growing and vibrant networks of young professionals excited about being Catholic. Many are discerning a vocation to the priesthood or religious life. In the marvelous phrase of Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee, young people will give their lives for a mystery but not for a question mark. By way of sharpest contrast, the discontinuant left is dying because there is no successor generation. It cannot replicate the bad old days, which to protest is its only reason for being.

This is great stuff! How could you not like it? Go pick up your copy today!