Fuzzy Focus Regarding My Second First Mass (12/3): While Father Kerpers insights about priestly service are to be applauded, there is a troubling impression that readers can be left with from comparison of presiding at the extraordinary form versus the ordinary form of Mass. He writes, I actually fe
Johns Gospel does not include a direct account of Jesus baptism Instead it supplies the testimony or witness of John the Baptist and his reflections on who Jesus is By considering what the Baptist saw in Jesus we may see more clearly what we can hope for from Jesus In his first chapter John the
Amid the negative rhetoric of some presidential candidates who seek to exploit the issue of undocumented immigrants, it is important to keep in mind a larger view of “people on the move.” What is happening in the United States represents just a small part of a worldwide phenomenon. A ma
Although the recently published National Intelligence Estimate has changed the nature of the international discussion about Irans nuclear ambition, it has not answered the question of Irans ultimate intention to acquire nuclear weapons. Whereas the intelligence estimate suggests with high probabilit
Feeling discomfort fellow citizens Do you have a mild pain in the Congress and bloating in the White House Does globalization cause belching nausea or heartburn Here 8217 s something with a very low risk of side effects 8221 So the pharmaceutical industry might try to sell Robert Reich 82
Theater Founder Says Disability Is a Gift The life of the imagination has no physical boundaries, and people with physical disabilities can use their imagination to face lifes difficulties. That is the enduring message of Rick Curry, a Jesuit brother, and the organization he founded 30 years ago in
In large part this book about U S -Iranian-Israeli international relations sets out to make a case for the progressive secularization of the post-revolutionary Iranian state In Treacherous Alliance Trita Parsi adjunct professor of international relations at Johns Hopkins University argues cogent
The reception on Dec. 21 into the Catholic Church of the UKs former prime minister, Tony Blair, has echoes of Americas JFK moment, when the old ghosts of suspicion about divided allegiances (Rome or home?) were laid to rest. Yet the fact that it has happened some months after resigning as prime mini
As a title, No Country for Old Men boasts a noble ancestry. It traces its roots through the novel by Cormac McCarthy to the opening line of William Butler Yeats’s poem “Sailing to Byzantium.” In the poem Yeats yearns to leave the ephemeral world of “whatever is begotten, born
As indicated in an earlier blog in THE GOOD WORD there are a number of passages in the writings of St Paul which suggest understandings of and limitations on women that seem unreasonable nbsp It is too long a project to analyze here all of these passages - indeed a fair and final nbsp evaluat
When asked to paint the Sistine Chapel in Rome Michelangelo followed a scheme in which he alternates Jewish prophets with pagan oracles nbsp His goal was to offer the viewer the Christian belief that all wisdom whether it be Jewish or pagan looks to one person Jesus Christ himself also
For terminal politicos like me last night was a much coveted but rarely experienced moment of real political drama No one knew what was going to happen in yesterday s Iowa caucuses This just doesn t happen in elections any more and it was fun to watch There is more than enough analysis of th
Get ready for the start of the Jesuits 35th General Congregation whose first order or nearly first order of business will be to elect a new superior general of the worldwide Society of Jesus The new General will succeed Peter-Hans Kolvenbach SJ the Dutch Jesuit who has served in the posi
My office neighbor Pat Kossman America s literary editor is super neat A place for everything and everything in its place is my impression of her take on the issue That is not mine at all First-time visitors to my own office tend to look about in dismay at papers and books on every flat
This Slate article on IVF appeared a few weeks ago but is worth revisiting for the ethical questions it raises The author makes the case that fertility doctors should encourage couples struggling to have children to go straight to IVF rather than first trying fertility medication and then art
Cambridge MA -- I am still deciding how to blog and it will take a while to figure out what I can write -- that America readers will find interesting But I am sure that I must write of and from what I know and central to this has to be also my teaching and my scholarly writing I will have am
The ancients in general seem to have understood that diverse deities existed related competed--and that the question for human discernment and commitment was which one whose was the real God Today s first reading from Isaiah can be understood in that way Perhaps generated from amid a wider