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** Daily Newsletter: October 30, 2025
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** In today’s newsletter:
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R. R. RENO: Christian Heroism ([link removed])

KERRI CHRISTOPHER: Why Are Divorce Memoirs Trending? ([link removed])

MICHAEL J. MAZZA: When Forgiveness of Sins Becomes a Financial Liability ([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 me as we explore whether Christianity really teaches a “slave morality,” the idea that divorce is just a step on the journey to self-actualization, and the overcorrections in Church policy that disregard due process for priests.

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** Christian Heroism ([link removed])
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** R. R. Reno
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From the November issue: Is Christianity really a “slave religion,” as Nietzsche said, promoting meekness over action? Yes, Christianity demands surrender, but through that surrender one can achieve more than he ever could by self-interest alone, editor Rusty Reno writes: “Heroic action and devoted obedience are not at cross-purposes. Rather, heroism, Christian or otherwise, arises from the spirit of love and devotion.”

For further reading: Rusty wrote a book on this topic back in 2000. Founding editor Richard John Neuhaus considered Heroism and the Christian Life: Reclaiming Excellence (co-authored with Brian S. Hook) in the back pages ([link removed]) of the November 2000 issue of First Things: “Enough for now to warmly recommend Heroism and the Christian Life. Not because I am in complete agreement with the argument, but because it is a bracing corrective to the false virtue of mediocrity so pervasive in our society, and not least in our churches.”
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** Why Are Divorce Memoirs Trending? ([link removed])
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** Kerri Christopher
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A certain class of women seems to view divorce as the new capstone on the pyramid of self-actualization, if the recent spate of divorce memoirs is anything to go by. Kerri Christopher writes that “these female authors view marriage as an unfair situation in which they can neither be fully themselves, nor fully explore and use their gifts and talents.” None of the memoirists fled abusive marriages; they simply found it exhausting to pursue a career and bear the “emotional labor” of keeping a family running—especially when children come along.

For further reading: Wendell Berry defined modern marriage as “two successful careerists in the same bed.” It makes sense then, that the mystery of sacrificial love played out in the relationships between children, parents, and spouses becomes something to be mitigated and divided rather than embraced. Leah Libresco Sergeant discussed the inescapability and ultimate goodness of dependence in a recorded conversation with Rusty a few weeks ago (“Declaration of Dependence ([link removed]) ”). Mary Harrington reviewed her book, The Dignity of Dependence, in “The Metaphysics of Care ([link removed]) .”
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** When Forgiveness of Sins Becomes a Financial Liability ([link removed])
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** Michael J. Mazza
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The American Catholic Church has overcorrected in its haste to protect children, canon lawyer Michael Mazza writes, going so far as to dismiss due process for priests even insubstantially accused of impropriety: “When the rule of law is deliberately neglected by those who should know better, ghosts from the past are allowed to destroy the lives of men who thought they could trust the Church to which they had given their lives, as if adherence to fundamental principles of justice is somehow incompatible with the genuine desire to protect children.”

For further reading: Often, in an attempt to protect themselves and their diocese, bishops offload much of their authorities to civil lawyers and risk managers. Mazza wrote on this phenomenon earlier this year in “Who’s Really Calling the Shots at U.S. Diocesan Chanceries? ([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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