Some of you might be aware of SNL rsquo s Really With Seth and Amy in which they express their incredulity with the fantastic incredible and implausible nature of current events nbsp Let rsquo s imagine for a moment that there was an ancient Jewish version of this given in the town square of

For the anniversary of Sept 11 2001 some memories of the time Two days after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center I made my way to one of the emergency trauma centers in Manhattan It had been hastily set up in a cavernous sports facility called Chelsea Piers on the Hudson River I h

Yesterday afternoon Planet Money deemed the widespread comment these days that Sovereign credit spreads in Europe are widening the scariest boring phrase nbsp in finance A credit spread is the difference between the interest rate on credit for the best economies and worst nbsp A widening cred

Coincidences occur when reading thinking and writing Several weeks ago my fellow Jim Keane S J launched a discussion on what history would have been like if John F Kennedy had not been elected president For several years I rsquo ve begun to read an occasional book from the genre of alternativ

This year world-wide celebrations commemorate the 400th anniversary of the death of Matteo Ricci the remarkable Italian Jesuit pioneer of cross-cultural understanding who opened China to the west and vice versa Ricci and the early Jesuit missionaries fostered a notion of salvific globalization

Here is our latest offering from Mirada Global an analysis of politics in Mexico on the anniversary of the country s founding Due to its deeply conservative nature the Mexican government is unable to face the Independence and the Revolution that marked the history of this country Questioned beca

Bishop Blase J Cupich a friend and contributor to America was installed last week as the sixth bishop of Spokane Washington Here we are happy to reprint his homily from that occasion The installation Mass took place on Friday September 3 the feast of St Gregory the Great The late Father Dav

One of the hardest lessons of the Great Recession has been accepting the fact that one need not have done anything imprudent excessive or unlawful to find oneself a victim of it anyway If you did not let your credit card debt mount precariously or take out a mortgage beyond your means or connive

This is the second in the series What is the Good Word Here is how I learned the number of books in the Bible there are 39 in the Old Testament if you multiply 3 x 9 you get 27 which is the number of books in the New Testament when you add the two together you get 66 which is the number of

In Lyons France an impish figure is causing a rift between a conservative Christian group on one side and the rector of the Catholic Cathedral on the other According to France 24 a stonemason working on the renovation fashioned a gargoyle after his friend and longtime construction manager Ahmed

In our current issue Archbishop Timothy M Dolan calls upon all Catholics to recommit themselves to the mission of Catholic education The truth is that the entire parish the whole diocese and the universal church benefit from Catholic schools in ways that keep communities strong Archbishop Dola

Religious leaders around the country are stepping forward to denounce acts of anti-Islamic bigotry emerging in the wake of the heated debate around the Park51 Islamic center proposed for lower Manhattan In a joint statement released at the National Press Club September 7 national religious figures

Perhaps we cloud this topic with euphemisms--but many a boy or growing young man who is poor at sports faces hurdles of bias loneliness and rejection Despite many ways of compensating intellectual musical artistic poor athletic coordination keeps many boys and young men alienated from their

Last week Archbishop Timothy Dolan the archbishop of New York invited me to join him on his weekly Sirius XM radio show on the Catholic Channel nbsp A radio show is a natural venue for the archbishop who as most American Catholics know by now is a friendly warm and genuinely happy priest

Belgian Cardinal Godfried Danneels whose attempts to mediate in a family dispute over one of his bishops who had abused his nephew ended in disaster was the subject of three previous posts here here and here which I rather agonised over caught up as I was in the human drama of it all The Ca

One of our newest associate editors Raymond Schroth S J a name most likely familiar to many of our readers he has a long history with America Commonweal and NCR and is the author of many well-respected books--including what looks like a fascinating new book soon to be published on Robert Dri

Stephen Hawking s recent comment that the universe does not need a creator God--because it can spontaneously create itself--has prompted lively debate on the web and also this intelligent response from nbsp Robert Spitzer S J nbsp nbsp Fr Spitzer a Jesuit priest and the former president of Go

From the Springfield Republican The athletic director at Cathedral High School Springfield MA lost her job this week saying she was pressured to leave after marrying her female partner in August Christine M Judd who served as athletic director and dean of students said she is no longer an e