Aaron Blake at the Washington Post spots a phenom hiding in plain site While reporters spent the GOP primary season tracking the ups and downs of the average Republican evangelical s psychologcial digestion of Mitt Romney s Mormonism in the background the Catholics were coming the Catholics were

Strange where generations divide I rsquo m an earlier version of humanity one without the opposable thumbs needed for texting When a younger colleague taught me to text I asked why I would want to do it ldquo Wouldn rsquo t it be easier to telephone rdquo ldquo Easier for the thumbs harde

Under fire for misrepresenting Catholic Social Teaching before his speach at Georgetown Congressman Ryan aimed to debunk the urban legend that he is follower of Ayn Rand in an interview at The National Review ldquo I reject her philosophy rdquo Ryan says firmly ldquo It rsquo s an atheist p

Last week on the day when the Vatican released the results of its investigation of the nbsp Leadership Conference of Women Religious which represents 80 percent of women rsquo s religious orders in this country I received emails from several Catholic sisters All described themselves as saddened

The article I cited yesterday from the Hill inspires two further comments First the author Alexander Bolton quotes Deal Hudson a conservative Catholic convert who many readers will remember as the former editor of Crisis magazine now defunct Currently Mr Hudson heads the Catholic Advoca

The following announcement was posted on the website of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in response to the Vatican s Assessment of the LCWR nbsp The national board of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious will meet May 29 - June 1 2012 to nbsp begin its discussion of nbsp t

There is both bad and good news to report on church affairs this week The bad news might have been avoided if the examples in the good news were followed First we have the rebuke from Rome of America rsquo s religious women which has been chronicled here by John Coleman Francis Clooney and other

In an article in The Hill rsquo s Healthwatch Alexander Bolton raises the specter that President Obama has not only lost the support of some Catholic voters over the religious liberty issue but that the situation could worsen when the U S Catholic bishops stage their planned religious liberty ral

A provocative essay from the Austrian Jesuit Robert Deinhammer S J courtsey of Mirada Global The vital need to protect the planet rsquo s ecosystems in a comprehensive and sustainable manner is mdash unfortunately mdash often undermined by events that derive from within the environmental movem

Was Jesus a small-government free-market conservative or a welfare-state advocating liberal There seems to be a debate about what if anything the New Testament offers in terms of government policy From NPR What would Jesus do with the U S economy That s a matter of fierce debate among Chris

Last week was a very hard one for me First I reeled from reading for the umpteenth time over a twenty year period Vatican attempts to tame the good sisters in a document seemingly aimed at dessicating The Leadership Conference of Religious Women Demands were made that the American nuns org

Cambridge MA Readers know that matters internal to the Church are not my major priority in blogging except in the refined sense that as we treat others we learn something about ourselves and as we receive or reject others we make choices defining and constraining who we are So I am willing to

Last weekend I had the privilege on spending time with nearly 100 college students who dedicate time throughout their busy academic years to ESTEEM a program aimed at empowering young adult Catholics to grow in their faith and to begin a lifetime of adult lay service to the Church at a variety of l

Since June 2002 in the printed pages of America magazine and here on its blog such as more recently nbsp here and here I have tried to make occasional theological sense of the unfolding sexual managerial abuse crisis in the U S Catholic Church As someone who works in the area of practical the

A very nice essay from Jim Keane S J over at The Jesuit Post Jim is studying theology in California and served at America as an associate editor If you rsquo ve been a student in a Catholic school over the past half-century and you rsquo ve spent any time studying the documents of Vatican II i

The famous Kony 2012 Youtube video brought wide attention to Joseph Kony and the abuses perpetrated by his Lord s Resistance Army in central Africa Here is another video about conflict in the region this one showing how religious leaders and laypeople in Uganda have sought to build peace through

Nothing better illustrates the radical novelty of the resurrection and its implications for religious life then to juxtapose a famous sardonic quote from the dying Socrates and a seemingly insignificant act of the resurrected Jesus nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbs

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious issued a short response to yesterday s nbsp CDF Doctrinal Assessment The presidency of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious was stunned by the conclusions of the doctrinal assessment of LCWR by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Beca