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** Daily Newsletter: JANUARY 12, 2026
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** In today’s newsletter:
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MARK MOVSESIAN: Was Maduro’s Arrest Legal? ([link removed])

GILBERT MEILAENDER: The Failure of Bioethics ([link removed])

MARK BAUERLEIN: How Science Trumped Materialism ([link removed])
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** Was Maduro’s Arrest Legal? ([link removed])
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** Mark Movsesian
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The legality of President Trump’s arrest of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro is unlikely to face pushback in U.S. courts, legal scholar Mark Movsesian writes. Not only does the action have a strong precedent in the arrest and conviction of Panama’s Manuel Noriega in 1990, international law protecting the sovereignty of other countries does not apply given that U.S. and most countries do not recognize Maduro as a legitimate head of state. The upcoming court case does open up discussion about the U.S.’s dualist approach to international law.

For further reading: Editor Rusty Reno weighed in on the event last week in “Trump’s Caracas Gambit ([link removed]) ,” arguing that the merit of this action depends on how it promotes “tranquility of order.”
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** The Failure of Bioethics ([link removed])
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** Gilbert Meilaender
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From the February issue: In June, the American Journal of Bioethics published an editorial pushing back on “assaults on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” Theologian Gilbert Meilaender charts the decline of bioethics as a field of study just as the need for sound moral reasoning on matters of death, life, and procreation is on the rise: “One may reasonably wonder whether bioethicists have any real claim to expertise about the character of the good life, and aggressively asserting what are, in large part, political claims only exacerbates the problem.”

For further reading: First Things founder Richard John Neuhaus had already perceived this decline in 2007, writing in “The Politics of Bioethics ([link removed]) ” that “one must acknowledge that bioethics as an intellectual institution is, in significant part, an industry for the production of rationalized—sometimes elegantly rationalized—permission slips in the service of the technological imperative joined to the pursuit of fame and wealth.”
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** How Science Trumped Materialism (ft. Michel-Yves Bolloré) ([link removed])
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** Mark Bauerlein
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Listen: Michel-Yves Bolloré joins Conversations to discuss his recent book God, the Science, the Evidence ([link removed]) , which explores the surprising ways in which scientists are moving away from viewing brute materialism as the only rational belief.

For further reading: Phillip E. Johnson explored “The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism ([link removed]) ” in the November 1997 issue.

Upcoming Events
* January 12, 2026: The February issue ([link removed]) goes live.
* February 1, 2026: Second Annual Neuhaus Lecture at the New College of Florida: “Recovering the University’s Soul” ft. Bishop Robert Barron | Sarasota, FL. Register here ([link removed])

* February 3, 2026: Second Annual Angelicum Aquinas Lecture: “A Conversation with the Theologian of the Papal Household” ft. Fr. Wojciech Giertych, O.P. | New York, NY. Register here ([link removed]) .

* March 5, 2026: Annual D.C. Lecture: “Our Crisis is Metaphysical” ft. Mary Harrington | Washington, D.C. Details coming soon.

Until next time,


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VIRGINIA AABRAM
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Newsletter Editor
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