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** Daily Newsletter: October 22, 2025
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** In today’s newsletter:
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FR. RAYMOND J. DE SOUZA: Two Takes on Pope Leo ([link removed])
FRANCIS X. MAIER: The Church and Immigration Sanity ([link removed])
JULIANA SWEENY: Children Are Gifts, Not Products ([link removed])
GEORGE WEIGEL: Dying from Compassion ([link removed])
Welcome to the First Things daily newsletter, your guide to the ideas and events shaping our shared moral, cultural, and religious life. Each article we publish continues the conversations First Things has led for thirty-five years.
Stay with us as we explore the difficulty in knowing anything about Pope Leo, how the Church fails to engage with the complicated morality of immigration, the commodification of children through IVF, and those speaking against euthanasia in Britain.
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** Two Takes on Pope Leo ([link removed])
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** Raymond J. De Souza
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From the November issue: Who is Pope Leo XIV? Six months into his pontificate, the question remains unanswered, though not for lack of trying. Fr. Raymond J. de Souza reviewed two flash biographies of the new pope, neither of which sheds much light on where Leo will steer the Church. The books, one by liberal Christopher White and the other by conservative Matthew Bunson, can’t do more than speculate, given the Holy Father’s strategic silence throughout his entire career.
For further reading: With so few words from his own lips to work with, Vatican watchers are left to extrapolate possible views from Pope Leo’s past. James Keating took the generational angle, analyzing the forces that shaped the pope in his youth in “Pope Leo, Catholic Boomer ([link removed]) ? ([link removed]) ”
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** The Church and Immigration Sanity ([link removed])
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** Francis X. Maier
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There is a gap between the Church’s messaging on immigration and the views of many people in the pews. Consulting editor Fran Maier writes that though the Church has admirably offered material support to migrants, it has insufficiently addressed the concerns of ordinary citizens. Neither the Trump administration’s force nor the Church’s blanket approval grapple with the moral complexities at the heart of the matter, which include both charity to the stranger and acknowledging that the right to immigrate is not absolute.
For further reading: Matthew Schmitz wrote in “Immigration Idealism ([link removed]) ” (May 2019) about how he changed his mind on open borders when he realized that elite support for immigration was based on contempt for the working class and a misunderstanding of Christianity that “reduces the gospel to an abstract law of love, ignoring much of Scripture—and reality.”
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** Children Are Gifts, Not Products ([link removed])
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** Juliana Sweeny
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American researchers recently succeeded in creating human embryos out of skin cells. If further trials are successful, buying and manufacturing children will be easier and cheaper than ever before. Juliana Sweeny writes that increasing access to IVF takes our culture further away from a biblical view of children and family: “It is tempting for Christians to celebrate any policy framed as ‘pro-family.’ Yet Scripture reminds us that children are not manufactured goods but divine gifts.”
For further reading: The Trump administration recently announced its IVF policy, which Ryan Anderson wrote about last week in “Trump’s IVF Policy Could Be Worse, But It’s Still Bad ([link removed]) .” Adeline Allen argued in “IVF and the Incarnation ([link removed]) ” (2024) that even a “Christian” method of IVF where all embryos are implanted is still wrong, because the process itself is dehumanizing.
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** Dying from Compassion ([link removed])
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** George Weigel
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In this week’s column, George Weigel highlights a few of Britain’s most outspoken voices against the assisted suicide bill currently languishing in the House of Lords. Though a former archbishop of Canterbury has been no help, claiming that the “Christian faith has very little to say” about euthanasia, others, including Lord Moore of Etchingham and Lord Alton of Liverpool, have been brave witnesses to life.
For further reading: Senior editor Dan Hitchens has been following the euthanasia bill and wrote about the horrific origins of the “right to die” movement in “Touching the Assisted Suicide Void ([link removed]) .”
Upcoming Events
* November 2, 2025: A Night of Poetry with Ben Myers | New York, NY. Register here ([link removed]) . ([link removed])
* November 3, 2025: The 38th Annual Erasmus Lecture: In Praise of Translation with Bishop Erik Varden | New York, NY. Register here. ([link removed])
* November 11, 2025: The Future of Higher Education, a discussion with Mark Bauerlein and Mark Regnerus | Irving, TX. Register here. ([link removed])
* January 9, 2026: Second Annual Neuhaus Lecture at the New College of Florida | Sarasota, FL. Details coming soon.
Until next time.
Virginia Aabram's signature
** VIRGINIA AABRAM
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Newsletter Editor
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