John W Martens an associate professor of theology at St Thomas University is well known to readers of The God Word In our latest podcast Prof Martens reflects on the question what is the Bible The answer depends on whether you are Jewish Catholic Orthodox or Protestant Even among Englis

For America rsquo s Catholic workers September 6 marks the second of two lsquo labor days rsquo of the calendar year Most of the world honors the laboring man and woman on May 1 a feast duly marked in our liturgical calendar as the Feast of St Joseph the Worker Later the first Monday in Septe

Over here in Britain we suffer from a particularly enthusiastic kind of professional secularist who loves nothing more than to mount elaborate arguments on the basis of the thinnest premises It must be something to do with our climate whose low grey skies encourage a certain kind of anorak to sp

Sharon MA As readers know I regularly help out with Masses at Our Lady of Sorrows parish in Sharon MA It is a small active and spiritual community that I am blessed to be connected with the past 13 years One of the best things about the parish is its long-time Deacon Michael Iwanowicz who

The Gospel reading for the Twenty Third Sunday of Ordinary Time Luke 14 25-37 is one of those passages that I just ache to cut down to size to make certain that it says something more palatable easier to handle than what it seems to be saying nbsp Jesus speaks to a crowd ldquo now large cro

Here s the trailer for the new movie There Be Dragons about the life of St Josemaria Escriva founder of Opus Dei It s directed by Roland Joffe who also directed The Mission Looks pretty good--though were there really so many drums in Josemaria s life The website for the film is here

Earlier this summer I spoke with Eboo Patel co-founder of the Interfaith Youth Core nbsp about the importance of interfaith dialogue at Catholic universities The Core works to provide the tools and support college students need to become leaders in this dialogue and to work together to build conn

Here s something you don t see every day nbsp The story of St Ignatius Loyola as told by a talking Spanish olive nbsp And--guess what --it s actually quite accurate nbsp High marks to the stuffed Spanish olive which has apparently been poring over The First Jesuits nbsp This nbsp fun video

Cambridge MA This then is the third and final of my blogs on Dominus Iesus as the September 5 anniversary of its release approaches My first was a general comment the second focused on theology after the declaration and this one is about dialogue after Dominus Iesus First though I wish parti

In Nairobi Kenya a Vatican communications official attending a workshop organised by the African bishops has called for something the African Catholic Church does not yet have a continental news service Catholics in Asia have the excellent UCAN Latin-Americans have the redoubtable ACI Prensa T

Faith in Public Life hosted an unusual teleconference September 1 bringing together the odd couple of U S religious leaders and international relations and security experts to discuss the increasingly strident national debate if it can be so characterized over the Park51 Cordoba Initiative That

Two items of note for you Anglophiles out there The BBC has collected its interviews with British authors in this amazing online archive Listen to conversations with Virginia Woolf P G Wodehouse Kingsley Amis Hilary Mantel V S Naipaul the list goes on Alas I can t locate any Graham Gree

A Princeton Theological Seminary researcher claims that more and more American teens are adopting a mutant form of Christianity in which God is a divine therapist whose mission is to make them feel better about themselves and their world Kenda Creasy Dean says more American teenagers are embrac

Given the number of hits on my piece on Glenn Beck and liberation theology and the number of comments some of them remarkably strong I thought I would offer a little quiz based on a quote just sent by a friend nbsp Who said the following to the Brazilian bishops in 1986 nbsp W e are convi

The students enrolled in the Project Management class at the University of Notre Dame are carrying one less heavy book this semester They ll still have to read the usual textbook Project Management in Practice but only after the electronic version has been downloaded to their new iPads The unive

And you thought your life was full of surprises nbsp This story from Loyola Press s blog People for Others nbsp tales the cake

The American Psychiatric Association is getting closer to putting into use the Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual This massive work defines behavioral symptoms of nearly 300 conditions that it deems to be ldquo psychiatric disorders rdquo Each is coded with a number For one

Cardinal Danneels s spokesman Toon Osaer has posted a statement by the Cardinal s lawyer in the comboxes below my previous post The statement sheds some important light on how Danneels saw the meeting with the abuse victim his uncle the bishop who abused him and their relatives Leaving aside