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** Daily Newsletter: NOVEMBER 17, 2025
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** In today’s newsletter:
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BRIAN A. GRAEBE: Hallowed Be Thy Names ([link removed])

KELSEY REINHARDT: A Catholic Approach to Immigration ([link removed])

R. R. RENO: Agonistic End Times ([link removed])

MARK BAUERLEIN: Self-Help from the Ancients ([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 been leading for thirty-five years.

Stay with me as we examine what’s in a (Marian) name, balancing justice and charity in the Catholic response to immigration, two visions of the end of the world, and an ancient guide to self-help.
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** Hallowed Be Thy Names ([link removed])
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** Brian A. Graebe
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The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith recently announced that the faithful should not formally use the titles “Co-redemtrix” and “Mediatrix” for the Blessed Virgin Mary, citing the potential for misunderstanding and conflation with Christ’s unique role as Redeemer. Fr. Brian Graebe writes that doctrinal pronouncements should come only from questions of truth rather than their capacity for confusion, but also posits that these titles are not specific to Mary in the same way as titles like “Theotokos” or “Conceived Without Sin”: “It is one thing, then, to explain and defend the truth that Mary is a co-redemptrix and a mediatrix of graces. It is another thing entirely to declare her the Co-redemptrix and the Mediatrix.”

For further reading: Timothy George wrote about the potential for these doctrines to dissuade Evangelicals from approaching Catholicism in “Evangelicals and the Mother of God ([link removed]) ” (February 2007): “Both Marian dogma and Marian devotion remain contentious, church-dividing issues. . . . Such concerns are not alleviated by the campaign of some Catholics a few years to to have Mary officially recognized, perhaps even with another infallible dogma, as mediatrix of grace and co-redemptrix with Christ himself.”
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** A Catholic Approach to Immigration ([link removed])
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** Kelsey Reinhardt
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Much Catholic discussion of the immigration question emphasizes pastoral accompaniment while relegating the necessity of secure borders to an aside, as demonstrated in the USCCB’s recent special pastoral message. Kelsey Reinhardt, president of Catholic Vote, writes that rule of law is imperative to the common good of both citizens and migrants: “It is precisely the collapse of lawful order that has created the conditions in which exploitation flourishes, cartels thrive, and millions of migrants are pushed into a shadow-world without legal recourse or clear prospects.”

For further reading: Contributing editor Francis Maier wrote about the lack of nuance in Catholic immigration discussions last month in “The Church and Immigration Sanity ([link removed]) .” He notes that the right to migrate is “not absolute” and is contingent on the migrants respect for the laws of the host nation, as well as that nation’s capacity to care for them and its own citizens.
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** Agonistic End Times ([link removed])
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** R. R. Reno
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From the November issue: How will the story of creation end? In November’s magazine, editor Rusty Reno examines two visions of the end of the world. The first is from Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, whose masterpiece The Divine Milieu speaks to an evolution toward perfection. The work made him a “spiritual custodian of a very modern belief in progress.” The second is contained in Peter Thiel and Sam Wolfe’s feature article in the same issue, which examines the role of the Antichrist. It is very possible that this figure comes with a seductive message of transhumanism, eventually revealing that the march of progress is toward ultimate defeat.

For further reading: Thiel and Wolfe’s “Voyages to the End of the World ([link removed]) ” is one of our most popular pieces this year. It looks at depictions of the antichrist in four literary works, making that case that he will come under the banner of progress.
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** Self-Help from the Ancients (ft. Michael Fontaine) ([link removed])
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** Mark Bauerlein
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Listen: Michael Fontaine joined Conversations with Mark Bauerlein to discuss his recent book, How to Have Willpower: An Ancient Guide to Not Giving In.

For further listening: Fontaine last joined the podcast ([link removed] ) in February to discuss his translations of Cicero on comedy and Ovid on getting over a breakup.

Upcoming Events
* February 1, 2026: Second Annual Neuhaus Lecture at the New College of Florida | Sarasota, FL. Details coming soon.

Until next time,


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VIRGINIA AABRAM
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Newsletter Editor
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