Of Many Things
The virtue of a Catholic journalist: Raymond Schroth, R.I.P.
Raymond A. Schroth, S.J. contributed more than 60 features to these pages, chronicling the most important events in the life of this country and the church throughout the world.
Your Take
The Letters
While I appreciate the value of recognizing a rare humanitarian gesture by the Trump administration, this editorial neglects to directly acknowledge U.S. culpability.
America readers across the U.S. tell us how the opioid crisis is affecting them
I’m afraid the community may become immune to helping these people. There is always talk of not administering the drugs that will bring these addicts who overdose back to life.”
Editorials
The Editors: Threats to Deport Dreamers Are Cruel and Shortsighted
Immigration policy in the United States is dispiritingly divisive, but there is one bright line that few voters want to cross.
The Editors: Parishes Should Lead Efforts to Understand Opioid Addiction
“We can’t just keep reviving people.”
Short Take
Charlie Gard: a story of disability bias
The focus of the court’s documents is not on Charlie’s imminent death, but on his brain function.
Dispatches
‘Act justly, love goodness’: Black Catholics in America
The Catholic Church in the United States boasts 71 million members, 2.9 million of whom are black. Representatives from that vibrant community met in Orlando in July for the National Black Catholic Congress. The event concluded with the prophet Micah’s call to “act justly, love goodness and walk humbly with your God.”
El Paso bishop: Stop deportations until immigration is fixed
“Our border community knows the reality of a broken immigration system.”
Can Pope Francis help Venezuela step back from the edge?
Rome is urging Venezuela President Maduro and his Chavistas to hold the elections they are now blocking, release hundreds of political prisoners like Mr. López and restore the democratic separation of powers they have mowed down.
Mosul residents flee into desert as ISIS is driven from the city; Catholic Relief Services responds
Many have simply walked from the city to the desert camps, a distance of 20 to 30 kilometers, says Mr. El-Mahdi. Now they confront hunger, thirst and the desert’s unforgiving sun. “The summer heat is brutal.”
A preventive strike on North Korea would be morally unjustifiable
Father J. Bryan Hehir believes that even the expanding reach of North Korean missiles cannot morally justify a preventive strike by the United States at this time.
Features
How Augustine’s Confessions and left politics inspired my conversion to Catholicism
Without quite knowing it, I had begun to rely on the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church.
Where is home? It’s a haunting question for both refugees and Christians.
Like so many others in the French capital region, I have the air of a foreigner.
Faith in Focus
I pardoned a convict who killed again. Here’s why I still believe in mercy.
Having so often petitioned a gracious God for the blessing of mercy, how could I deny it to others?
Vantage Point
From 1967: A Luther Renaissance in Catholic Thought
This article appeared as “Luther and Catholic Historians,” on Oct. 21, 1967.
Books
From Jonathan Edwards to Billy Graham
Larry Madaras reviews “The Evangelicals: An Essential History for the Struggle to Shape America” by Frances Fitzgerald.
It’s time to reclaim Thoreau from motivational memes
If Thoreau’s words merely decorate the playrooms of grown children, his burial is long overdue.
Fixing the capitalist system
John Matteson reviews “The Fate of the West” by Bill Emmott
How to build a better preacher
Father Thomas J. Scirghi recognizes how much preparation good preaching requires.
Dispatches from America’s ethnic enclaves
Paul Moses reviews “City of Gods: Religious Freedom, Immigration and Pluralism in Flushing, Queens” and “Irish-American Autobiography: The Divided Hearts of Athletes, Priests, Pilgrims, and More.”
Music
What theologians and environmentalists can learn from Sufjan Stevens
The texture and variety of Stevens’s new album creates liminal spaces between the sacred and the profane.
Television
‘Will’ explores the genesis of genius, and Shakespeare’s Catholic roots
The story of Shakespeare is eternally appealing, because we want to know what confluence of circumstances, or divine blessing, could produce such a towering figure.
Poetry
I would be remiss if I didn’t consider the possibility of gratitude
For the brackish water, and electricity / That charge our thoughts and spines.
The Word
Great Is Your Faith!
The Canaanite woman’s stubborn prayer is a genuine example of the faith of Israel.
Tune Out the Noise
Matthew took an account that affirmed Jesus’ divinity and crafted it into a lesson on the power of faith.
Last Take
How Helmut Kohl seized the mantle of God by working toward a unified Europe
Mourners from across the continent praised Helmut Kohl’s vision for a united Europe
Faith
‘Act justly, love goodness’: Black Catholics in America
The Catholic Church in the United States boasts 71 million members, 2.9 million of whom are black. Representatives from that vibrant community met in Orlando in July for the National Black Catholic Congress. The event concluded with the prophet Micah’s call to “act justly, love goodness and walk humbly with your God.”
From 1967: A Luther Renaissance in Catholic Thought
This article appeared as “Luther and Catholic Historians,” on Oct. 21, 1967.
Great Is Your Faith!
The Canaanite woman’s stubborn prayer is a genuine example of the faith of Israel.
Tune Out the Noise
Matthew took an account that affirmed Jesus’ divinity and crafted it into a lesson on the power of faith.
How Augustine’s Confessions and left politics inspired my conversion to Catholicism
Without quite knowing it, I had begun to rely on the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church.
I pardoned a convict who killed again. Here’s why I still believe in mercy.
Having so often petitioned a gracious God for the blessing of mercy, how could I deny it to others?
Magazine
The Letters
While I appreciate the value of recognizing a rare humanitarian gesture by the Trump administration, this editorial neglects to directly acknowledge U.S. culpability.
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts