Magazine

On April 4, 1968, just hours before Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis, Tenn., Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign made a stop in Muncie, Ind. He wanted to talk to the 9,000 students who had assembled in the gymnasium at Ball State University about the meaning of life. “W

Israel at 60, defending religious freedom, the commencement season

Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; achieving universal free primary education; promoting gender equality and empowerment of women; reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; combating H.I.V./AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing a glob

The most extraordinary presidential primary season since 1976, when Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan competed for delegates right up to the eve of the Republican National Convention, is nearly over. Cynics and late-night comics no doubt will heave a well-practiced sigh of relief and pretend, as best th

The many symbols of the liturgy

Few saints’ days are more widely celebrated throughout the world than March 17, the feast of St. Patrick. No literary date is commemorated more widely than June 16, Bloomsday, which marks the day in 1904 on which the fictional events of James Joyce’s Ulysses unfolded. Both days are major

In his second encyclical letter, Pope Benedict XVI affirms the centrality of hope as a Christian virtue, one that carries those imbued with it to the doorway of salvation. The Christian’s ultimate hope is in Christ the savior. Here and now we carry hope also for the church, Christ’s body