In the years following World War II and continuing after the Second Vatican Council, to be an American Catholic novelist often meant to be lapsed.

Icons of Hope John Thiel rsquo s creative effort to explore Christian belief in eternal life is clearly the work of a major theological thinker Focusing on the eschata the classical four last things mdash heaven hell death and judgment mdash Thiel rejects Kant rsquo s position on the limitatio

Bishop Aloysius Jin Luxian has been one of the most important and controversial figures in modern Chinese Catholicism Born into a Catholic family in Shanghai in 1916 he was educated by the French Jesuits in that city and became a Jesuit himself living through a tumultuous time in China rsquo s hi

Without a Claim Grace Schulman rsquo s dazzling seventh poetry collection immerses us in a richly textured world where ldquo dread-and-joy rdquo are neighbors ldquo Charles Street Psalm rdquo and nothing is truly ours ldquo We rent borrow or share even our bodies and never own all that

There have been many famous letters and letter-writers in history One thinks immediately of Cicero who made it an art form Then of course we have St Paul who filled his letters to early Christian communities with advice and doctrine news from the front and occasional scoldings One also thin

Dozens of well-known American and British actresses have portrayed religious women in film Some of them mdash Jennifer Jones in ldquo The Song of Bernadette rdquo and Susan Sarandon in ldquo Dead Man Walking rdquo mdash won Academy Awards for their performances There have been nuns who broke i