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 what Zohran Mamdani’s victory means for wokeness, assisted suicide in Illinois, and Newman’s relationship with the papacy.
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In the news: Zohran Mamdani will be the new mayor of New York. Shortly after his primary victory, Gregory Conti wrote about what the self-professed socialist’s success means in the second age of Donald Trump: “If the Mamdani phenomenon testifies that wokeness is far from its peak of power and stridency, it equally testifies that wokeness is far from dead.”
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Illinois is now the latest state to legalize assisted suicide, sneakily tacked on to a food safety bill and passed by the state assembly in the middle of the night. Mary Kate Zander, president of Illinois Right to Life, writes, “Certainly, death is inevitable—but it is also the will of God that the timing of such remain outside our grasp. It’s a tough argument to make, especially in a culture that does not tolerate religious arguments in the public square and values individualism and ‘choice’ above all else.”
For further reading: In Canada, among the earliest nations to legalize euthanasia, almost 5 percent of all deaths last year were the result of euthanasia. Planning to join them is Robert Munsch, author of the moving picture book Love You Forever. Jonathon Van Maren wrote about assisted suicide and the corruption of love in “As Long as You’re Living.”
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Pope Leo named St. John Henry Newman a doctor of the church on November 1. In his column today, George Weigel writes about Newman’s ideas on the development of doctrine and authority of the pope. He writes, “The irony of Newman being given this rare honor just now lies in the fact that the unity of the Church is threatened by recrudescent ultramontanism: not the old, nineteenth-century reactionary model, but a new hybrid combining Catholic progressivism in the realm of ideas with liberal authoritarianism in Church governance.”
For further reading: Jacob Phillips wrote in “Newman Against Compromise” on Newman’s view on doctrinal compromise, and how he eventually concluded that “compromise in the fundamental truths of religion is just irreligion.”
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- January 9, 2026: Second Annual Neuhaus Lecture at the New College of Florida | Sarasota, FL. Details coming soon.
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Until next time.
VIRGINIA AABRAM
Newsletter Editor
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