Memories of Boko Haram’s murderous spree in his Nigerian hometown haunt Tom Gowon, 9, as he sits on a patch of grass at a refugee camp, sipping steaming porridge from a plastic mug.“I was lucky because I was not killed,” said Gowon, recalling the assault on Baga, Nigeria, in early

Catholicism is undergoing an epochal transformation For more than a millennium dogma has been the hard core of church life defining who is in and who is out Partisans have fought over the correct way to define Christian belief they condemned their opponents and persecuted them as heretics In thi

'Eucharist as Meaning' by Joseph C. Mudd

'Occupy Spirituality' by Adam Bucko and 'From Willow Creek to Sacred Heart' by Chris Haw

Cardinal Edward Egan’s time as leader of one of the nation’s largest archdioceses was haunted by the unfolding child abuse scandal, shocked by the terror spectacle of Sept. 11, 2001, and troubled by a period of fiscal uncertainty and parish closings. But Cardinal Edward Egan, archbishop

The author would be 90 years old today.

If for a second Óscar Romero had glanced through the open doors of the chapel, would he have seen the young man taking aim? Would he have been afraid? Would he have been tempted to flee?

One night William Stringfellow dreamed that he was stabbed with a knife on 125th Street in Harlem, at the hands of a black man who had asked him for a light. Stringfellow then lived in Harlem not far from there. He was a white man who graduated from Harvard Law School and, in 1956, promptly put his

Barbara Moore, a sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet who 50 years ago this March participated in the civil rights march in Selma, Ala., said that events in Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere show that more needs to be done on race relations in the United States. • Marking International Women’s D

Exploring the Spiritual Exercises through movement

Health Care RhetoricRe “A Sense of Solidarity,” by Kevin P. Quinn, S.J. (3/2): I was very disturbed by the generalization and characterization of “most, if not all, conservative opposition” in the review of Health Care as a Social Good, by David M. Craig. The implication is t

For the Christian, reports of prison scandals recall images of Jesus the prisoner.

Though the crime rate in the United States has fallen sharply over the past quarter-century, our federal and state prison population has been frozen for nearly a decade at a historic high of 1.6 million. By one estimate, America has 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of its pri

My whole life was planned out when I stepped onto campus my freshman year. Although I was undeclared, I knew I wanted to major in education and graduate in four years, no more, no less. I was not exactly excited to be starting college, but I was excited to eventually become a teacher. In short, I kn

On March 4, the U.S. Justice Department released the results of its investigation into the killing of Michael Brown last August in Ferguson, Mo. It concluded in an 87-page report “that the facts do not support the filing of criminal charges against Officer Darren Wilson.” But a second, p

Officials of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops warn that the Syrian refugee crisis—four million people have fled the war-torn state—has reached a dangerous “tipping point.” Turkey alone has absorbed almost two million refugees from Syria and is now the only regional pow

A significant celebration occurred on March 10 this year in Glasgow, Scotland. The city lauded St. John Ogilvie, S.J., on the 400th anniversary of his martyrdom. On the previous weekend at the Church of St. Aloysius in Glasgow, staffed by the Jesuits, many gathered for liturgical commemorations of t

‘What can possibly make a difference in these kids’ lives after all they have been through?” I asked. The director of the children’s shelter we were visiting that Sunday morning took her finger off the “enter” button she was using to flick through a PowerPoint pre

The Catholic Church firmly opposes the death penalty and urges all states to move toward its abolition, said the Vatican’s permanent observer to United Nations agencies in Geneva. “My delegation contends that bloodless means of defending the common good and upholding justice are possible