Of Many Things
Father Matt Malone: Why America magazine called for the withdrawal of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination
We won’t always get it right, but we’d rather lose than lie.
Your Take
The Letters
Let’s face reality…. Only people of means can choose Jesuit education.
Our readers respond to Brett Kavanaugh
“I am shocked to see so many attacking Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.”
Editorials
The Editors: Stop shrinking assistance programs with bureaucracy
Two trends converged in Arkansas: reinforcing a stigma about receiving public assistance and using inefficient bureaucratic procedures to drive recipients off these assistance programs.
The Editors: Slashing refugee numbers is unethical and harms our country
It should go without saying that there is little justification for such a callous and indifferent response to refugees at the exact moment that the United States enjoys its strongest economy in a generation.
Short Take
Despite China-Vatican agreement, many Chinese worry about religious freedom
The provisional agreement between the Vatican and Beijing gives no assurance the government will curb its recent crackdown on religious practice, which includes unprecedented control over Muslims and Buddhists.
Dispatches
Trump’s decision to isolate Palestinians is threatening a humanitarian crisis
The United States is gutting the funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, creating an instant humanitarian crisis for a region already overloaded with them.
V Encuentro national gathering focuses on young Latino Catholics
“Young Latinos are engaged. They are open to giving of themselves,” Archbishop José Gomez said. “We need to be more conscious of ministries for young Catholics.”
Pope Francis recognizes Chinese bishops ordained without papal approval
Pope Francis has recognized all the remaining bishops who were ordained in China in recent years without the pope’s approval.
Catholic Charities distributes disaster relief to areas hit by Florence
The Carolinas were hard hit with record rainfall and flooding rivers from tropical storm Florence since it made landfall Sept. 14. And although the storm was downgraded from a hurricane to a Category 1 tropical storm, it still caused extensive water damage.
Features
The fight to save the soul of the G.O.P.
The G.O.P. was founded to oppose slavery, which makes it all the more ironic that the party of freedom finds itself in bondage—to itself.
How to Choose the Right Godparent
The work of choosing and being a godparent can lead to hurt feelings, dashed expectations—and the occasional influx of unexpected grace.
Faith and Reason
Four lessons from Mary for the Synod on Young Adults
Before we can accompany young Catholics, we must know where we are taking them. Mary shows the way.
Faith in Focus
Eight lessons to help us move forward from the sex abuse crisis.
What I’ve learned from more than 50 years in service of the church.
Ideas
Can you build a profitable church on the margins?
A new season of the podcast “Startup” takes us into the church planting movement
Meet the team breaking new ground in filmmaking (and fundraising) to bring Jesus’ beatitudes to life
“8beats,” the brainchild of the Catholic Creatives, is an ambitious new project: a cinematic anthology on the beatitudes.
Books
Review: Chicago’s lay Catholics and civil rights
Karen J. Johnson focuses on the minority of white Catholics who felt that racial equality was a moral and religious, not merely political, issue.
Review: Negotiating tensions in a postsecular world
The Catholic Church needs to recognize that moved from a secular public sphere—marked by separate and specialized spheres of economy, science, faith and so forth that manage their own concerns in an insular way—to a postsecular public sphere, in which a multiplicity of voices and expertise are welcome to weigh in on an issue.
The Class of 1943: Simone Weil, Jacques Maritain, C. S. Lewis, W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot
Alan Jacobs’s new book is a collage of the intellectual considerations of five thinkers who, in their experience of the violence of World War II and their revulsion at the fascism that fueled it, contemplate the nature of education and its renewal after the anticipated Allied victory.
The Gospel According to John Kerry
The story of Kerry’s faith journey is among the most evocative parts of the new memoir by the former Democratic presidential candidate and secretary of state.
Film
An oral history of the ‘Romero’ movie
On the eve of Romero’s canonization, the film’s actors and writers look back at the seminal biopic
Poetry
Great Blue Heron
his rattail and wet neck spikes lumbering skyward
The Word
Are you a servant leader?
The Evangelists had come to believe that Jesus was indeed the bearer of divine authority.
Do you encourage others to follow Jesus?
Mark’s community found themselves waiting for deliverance during a time of great distress.
Last Take
From the church to the public stage, Aretha Franklin earned her respect
In the patriarchal spaces of the music world as well as the church world, Aretha Franklin demanded respect for her talents and her work.
Faith
Are you a servant leader?
The Evangelists had come to believe that Jesus was indeed the bearer of divine authority.
Despite China-Vatican agreement, many Chinese worry about religious freedom
The provisional agreement between the Vatican and Beijing gives no assurance the government will curb its recent crackdown on religious practice, which includes unprecedented control over Muslims and Buddhists.
How to Choose the Right Godparent
The work of choosing and being a godparent can lead to hurt feelings, dashed expectations—and the occasional influx of unexpected grace.
Do you encourage others to follow Jesus?
Mark’s community found themselves waiting for deliverance during a time of great distress.
Four lessons from Mary for the Synod on Young Adults
Before we can accompany young Catholics, we must know where we are taking them. Mary shows the way.
Eight lessons to help us move forward from the sex abuse crisis.
What I’ve learned from more than 50 years in service of the church.
V Encuentro national gathering focuses on young Latino Catholics
“Young Latinos are engaged. They are open to giving of themselves,” Archbishop José Gomez said. “We need to be more conscious of ministries for young Catholics.”
Magazine
The Letters
Let’s face reality…. Only people of means can choose Jesuit education.
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts