As is true of all Lisa Sowle Cahill rsquo s writings this latest volume from the distinguished Christian ethicist from Boston College is a significant contribution not only to that discipline but also to theology Here she is less concerned about particular social issues and aims to provide a sust

Many retreat houses feature a labyrinth pilgrims wend their way through a circuitous though orderly route metaphorically tracing the ever ancient ever new challenge of cultivating union with a mysterious deity By contrast Peter McDonough rsquo s The Catholic Labyrinth a book that sketches a sp

Reza Aslan rsquo s study of the historical Jesus has been hovering near the top of The New York Times best-seller list for several weeks It is written in an engaging style and reads like a historical novel But the author does not want it to be taken as ldquo fiction rdquo but as a serious work o

The dysfunction that plagues Washington D C is usually attributed to ideological division and the attendant unwillingness to compromise A contrary explanation is discernible in Mark Leibovich rsquo s chatty book This Town According to Leibovich ldquo the city far from being hopelessly divide

If Seamus Heaney digs with his pen Erskine Clarke casts his like an expert fly fisherman In this book By The Rivers of Water chapters end with sharp forebodings of what lurks around the next bend Clarke reels us through the lives of Leighton and Jane Wilson a married missionary couple who leav

A collection of essays by Ignacio Ellacuria

When the Egyptian military seized power in June American pundits instantly rushed to preach about democracy This took some hubris considering that two recent American elections mdash 2000 and 2004 mdash are still considered by many to be of questionable legality and that redistricting is rapidly

When the murderers of Archbishop Thomas Becket sliced off the top of his head and scattered his brains on the pavement stones of Canterbury Cathedral they could hardly have imagined the fascination their victim's life would attract for centuries to come.

A college president who is not already a wee bit nuts might easily become so when exposed to the competitive dysfunctionality and rampant absurdity that pass for normal behavior in the academy But while curious characters abound no university leader is quite so unhinged as M R Neukirchen the im

Considerable debate is taking place throughout the Catholic world over whether and how church practices teachings and organizational infrastructure should change in response to new social norms and needs As reported recently in The National Catholic Reporter the Vatican has asked bishops across t

Demonstrations of God rsquo s existence have long been a staple in philosophy courses taught at Catholic colleges and universities The heritage is venerable stretching back from the present day to the ancient Greeks In his eminently readable God in Proof Nathan Schneider presents this history of

ldquo Change will come when the people are engaged right at the heart of things rdquo said Josette P rard a grass-roots activist in Haiti She spoke as that country struggled to rebuild after the disastrous earthquake of Jan 12 2010 that killed over 200 000 Haitians and destroyed the homes o

I first discovered Mario Vargas Llosa in 1990 when I was in Peru to see a friend climb Machu Picchu and write an article That was the time when Vargas Llosa the novelist was running for president of Peru The guerilla movement Shining Path was terrorizing the countryside and the economy was fal

During a much-discussed speech at The National Defense University earlier this year President Obama cataloged the dreadful conditions at Guant namo Bay and then asked ldquo Is that who we are Is that something that our Founders foresaw rdquo The question was obviously rhetorical though as Lo

During his long distinguished life as historian and novelist Thomas Fleming has focused for the most part upon 18th-century America and the Revolution That sustained focus however in some surprising ways has now led to his newest book a highly recommended narrative history that is dominated b

George R Tyler draws on his long public and private sector experience both domestic and international to fashion a wide-ranging indictment of late 20th and early 21st century American capitalism What Went Wrong is a ldquo J rsquo accuse rdquo aimed at policies favoring corporate elites but hu

The night before this review was being tortured into near-coherence a musical group called the Postal Service appeared on ldquo The Colbert Report rdquo promoting its new release ldquo Give Up rdquo mdash which was actually recorded 10 years earlier and was being re-released The history of

In a desperate move to bring fresh water to its parched northern regions China is constructing the South-North Water Diversion Project at a cost of 50 billion In the Near East the Jordan River shared among several countries is dangerously low and heavily polluted while in the United States th

In The City of God St Augustine describes how the destruction of Carthage led to Rome rsquo s demise The cloud placed over Rome by its fierce rival kept its morality in check When Rome destroyed Carthage ldquo a crowd of disastrous evils forthwith resulted from the prosperous condition of thin

In her 1963 essay ldquo Novelist and Believer rdquo Flannery O rsquo Connor lamented the difficulty of writing about man rsquo s encounter with God and making the experience understandable and credible to a skeptical modern audience devoid of religious feeling ldquo Today rsquo s reader rdquo