'What They Wished For,' by Lawrence J. McAndrews

'On the Left Bank of the Tiber,' by Gerald O'Collins, S.J.

Ecumenical Day of Solidarity feeds 'hope against apathy, fear, death and impunity.'

First there was dead silence and then there were tears.That is how the Rev. Robert J. Verrigni described the reaction of parishioners at St. Ursula in Mount Vernon, N.Y., to the announcement on Nov. 2 that their parish would merge with another and cease to celebrate weekly Masses after Aug. 1, 2015.

According to data collected in October by the Chaldean Diocese of Erbil, there are more than 10,000 Christian families who have found refuge in the suburbs of Erbil and other parts of Iraqi Kurdistan after fleeing Mosul and the cities of the Nineveh Plain before the advance of Islamic State militant

Among the subjects of debate and ostensible controversy that arose during the 2014 Synod on the Family and continue in its wake, one in particular captured my attention: whether doctrine can change or develop. The answer is: it certainly does develop. It always has.One of the synod participants, Car

Market Measures“Market Assumptions” (11/3), by Bishop Robert W. McElroy, is a thoughtful, well-reasoned and inspired explanation of Pope Francis’ statements on income inequality and how some cultural assumptions in the United States make a full appreciation of his critique and chal

My host paused with his hand on the lid as we stood before the long wooden box. “Are you ready,” he asked, “to see the ‘shawl’ of Mbah Jarik?” What awaited me in that container was a glimpse of Indonesia’s ancient Muslim traditions—traditions that are

If you have been paying any attention to California news lately, you’ve heard about the state’s devastating three-year drought: counties worth of farms decimated, whole towns without water and government officials proposing emergency legislation. This year has been thus far the driest ye

Catholic leaders in Pakistan protested the beating and burning on Nov. 4 of a young Christian couple accused of desecrating the Quran. “The government has absolutely failed to protect its citizens’ right to life,” said the National Commission for Justice and Peace of the Catholic B

American voters say the next Congress's top priority should be to fix itself.

There is no poem like a gravestone,that tersely worded, lapidary tercet,the name, the numbers, and the R.I.P.that are the skeleton key to all biography.Some lie embedded, trapdoors in the grass,while others rear their monumentalcornices and angels, like cathedralswhere worms receive the body’s

One man’s jouney from death row to a new life

The legacy of George W. Hunt, S.J., continues to grow with America's new literary prize.

The Archdiocese of Chicago on Nov. 6 released approximately 15,000 pages of documents related to 36 archdiocesan priests who have substantiated allegations against them of sexual misconduct with minors. The documents are posted on the archdiocesan website, www.archchicago.org. All the records pertai

A parish twinning-style relationship between St. Lawrence Parish in Tampa, Fla., and a small Catholic community in Cuba’s Pinar del Rio province has resulted in official permission for the construction of the first new Catholic church to be erected in Cuba in nearly six decades. • In a le

How can we teach the news reading skills that are essential to responsible citizenship?

The fact that before the year A.D. 325, synods were held everywhere in the church demonstrates that the bishops realized, as the author Msgr. Michael Magee put it, that “no bishop was entitled to exercise his office in isolation from the common good of all the Churches, or from his brothers in

‘Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice,” Karl Marx notes in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852). “He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” Entirely too many protagonist

‘You know that I am preparing an encyclical on ecology; be assured that your concerns will be present in it,” Pope Francis told 150 representatives of grassroots movements from 80 countries when he met with them in the Vatican on Oct. 28.As pastor in Buenos Aires, he knew the potential o