Where is that arena of solitude and inactivity where we let God in without a competitor?

A collection of articles, videos and podcasts highlighting significant moments of Francis' ministry.

In the latest issue of nbsp America regular contributor Fr Daniel P Horan O F M has a marvelous reflection on Lent and water quot Thirsting for Lent quot After noting that some people might be looking for something beyond the usual quot giving something up quot he writes quot I sugge

Does the Russian takeover of Crimea pose a threat to religious freedom in the region?

A coalition of nearly 200 Catholic dioceses, agencies and businesses has asked a federal court in Oklahoma to block enforcement of a Department of Health and Human Services mandate that it says would force its members to violate their religious beliefs. Under the banner of the recently formed Cathol

Deep economic problems and violent demonstrations in Venezuela have left Catholic charities struggling to supply food and medical supplies amid an increase in demand for services, said a top Catholic aid official."The situation has been getting worse over the last year, but now we're at the

Whenever Tia Clifford and her five college housemates catch one another getting worked up—dwelling on the past or stressing about the future—they quote the mantra of a Catholic sister on campus, abbreviated and attached to Twitter parlance: “Hashtag BWYFA!”The acronym, which

Republicans change their "tough on crime" tune this year at CPAC.

Thomas Nevin rsquo s The Last Years of Saint Th r se the sequel to his Th r se of Lisieux God rsquo s Gentle Warrior is at once beautiful and maddening It describes the final years of Th r se rsquo s life in great detail and with helpful insights but does it in blustery and reductive pros

Newspaper editorial writers labor long and hard and in relative obscurity to craft persuasive arguments to win readers to the publication rsquo s point of view on an issue But most readers surveys tell us give little more than a glance to the columns of black ink that carry those arguments The e

When retired Bishop Walter F Sullivan died this past December countless thousands mourned the loss of a beloved spiritual teacher who had presided over the Diocese of Richmond Va for 29 years The Good Bishop is a fitting tribute to this man who fought for prison reform opposed the death penal

A short and intriguing book Piero Boitani rsquo s The Gospel According to Shakespeare is written by a major scholar for everybody for scholars for non-scholars for us all It is a fine book and its intriguing quality is that the reader keeps wondering if Boitani can pull it off Can he establis

Americans support United States interventions abroad ldquo only so long as someone else rsquo s kid does the fighting and future generations get stuck with the bill rdquo So concludes Andrew J Bacevich in this passionate new book about military policy in the post-Vietnam era Bacevich has excelle

Part of the excitement in those daily homilies Pope Francis has been delivering is that here is the pope saying things many of us have been saying to one another but have seldom if ever heard from the pulpit or read in the diocesan press On June 20th the pope urged Jesuit journalists to attack hypo

Travel has been around since Adam and Eve were forced to leave the Garden of Eden Noah built an ark and Abram also on God rsquo s instructions took a look at all of the land before his eyes Travel writing was invented by Homer and Virgil and the Synoptic Gospels may have helped revive the genre

Edna O rsquo Brien had a dream In it she is a very young girl on her way to school when she trips and falls on the road gashing her forehead open Out spills her brain which becomes a spinning top that passers-by young and old dance and trample upon Reality for O rsquo Brien has proved far les

Readers looking for a nice conventional story about serving others and how fulfilling that can be must look elsewhere Jay Sullivan rsquo s Raising Gentle Men Lives at the Orphanage Edge is real and serving others is complicated Sullivan spent two years between undergraduate and law school teach

ldquo In our era the road to holiness necessarily passes through the world of action rdquo That claim by Dag Hammarskj ld is borne out in the books published in the series ldquo Orbis Modern Spiritual Masters rdquo The authors of these paperbacks are people of action whose holiness-spiritual

In his very first sentence Denys Turner professor of historical theology at Yale University tells us that in his portrait of that most Catholic of Catholic philosopher-theologians St Thomas Aquinas 1225-74 ldquo I have not until undertaking this work given more careful consideration to an i