Cambridge MA I must be candid I am not a stellar example of being a good neighbor While I try reasonably successfully to be a good neighbor at Harvard mdash attentive to my colleagues and students intuiting who I might help listening finding friends mdash nbsp I am not much of a neighbor o

Today s Feast reminded me of an entertaining story about St Ignatius it has been told and retold to the extent that its original author can perhaps no longer be known but I heard it first when I was a Jesuit novice from the great Fr Vinny O Keefe S J nbsp It goes something like this In the e

An excerpt from ‘The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything,’ by Father James Martin

nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp Like many city dwellers I tend to pray on the go especially on the subway to work in the early morning At that hour before six fellow passengers are relatively subdued either waking up or reading newspapers when I set out

The citizens of Trento are no doubt happy to reclaim their city from the 585 moral theologians who invaded it for a giant five-day three-generation family reunion the group of us included pre-Vatican II Vatican II and post-Vatican II moral theologians from 73 countries I m sure we gave Trenti

On July 25 the digital gadflies at WikiLeaks org offered up their latest e-coup what WikiLeaks is calling the Afghan War Diaries It is 91 000 documents from the mundane to the heartbreaking that trace the daily violent trudge through the frustrating tactical maze that our nation-building adventu

As the midterm election season speeds up the legislative calendar a proposal for setting new global priorities transferring resources from nuclear weapons to satisfying basic needs especially those of children is making its way through Congress It has just received endorsement from the Vatican

Arizona s Catholic bishops released the following statement yesterday afternoon on a federal court decision which blocks some elements of Arizona s controversial immigration law more on this We the Roman Catholic Bishops in Arizona commend Judge Susan Bolton for enjoining some of the more probl

ldquo Spill Baby Spill rdquo is a line Sarah Palin might have coined during these months since the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico It is after all the underside of ldquo drill baby drill rdquo the mantra she used to evoke how easy and near is the remedy to our nat

The trafficking of women and children for purposes of sex has grown exponentially to become a major criminal activity mdash generating funds of around 12 billion a year just behind the criminal funds generated by illegal drug and arms sales The United Nations Protocol to Prevent Suppress and Pun

The two most contentious aspects of the controversial Arizona law SB 1070 sections that called for Az police officers to check a person s immigration status while enforcing other laws and that required immigrants to carry their residency documents at all times nbsp have been blocked by a federal

Geoffrey Berg author of The Six Ways of Atheism recently challenged Pope Benedict XVI to a public debate about the existence of God which Berg hopes will take place during Benedict rsquo s upcoming visit to the U K In an open letter to the pope a copy of which also was sent directly to the Vati

When rock and roll music was born in the 1950s it was performed primarily by young people for young people A number of those young rock stars have grown old yet they continue to play vital exciting rock music It is sad for me as a fan however when rock musicians I admire pass away As more ldq

This week in conjunction with his article on The Jesus Controversy we are pleased to feature a conversation with renowned Bibilcal scholar Luke Timothy Johnson on our podcast Johnson argues that historical scholarship alone cannot find the living Jesus Though the study of history can help Chri

A micro-controversy related to last Spring s drawn-out battle over whether or not the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act PPACA the nation s engine of health care reform included end-run bureaucratese that would allow federal funding for abortion was stirred up by the release of guideline

In many respects, the U.S. Army and the Catholic Church could not be more dissimilar institutions. Both have radically different missions, divergent access to resources, and, seemingly, heterogeneous cultures.

Those who never got around to reading Jesus of Nazareth might have a better chance of getting through Pope Benedict XVI s latest work a children s book The 48-page book is called The Friends of Jesus and is based on texts from the pope s Wednesday general audiences The cover illustration by an It

Trento Italy ndash While the shifts in the Church that predicated the Council of Trent in the mid-1500s may not be quite as seismic as those put in motion by Martin Luther the nearly 600 moral theologians who have been meeting here since Saturday as part of a world-wide ldquo congress rdquo in

Fr Jim Martin is on retreat this week but you can still check out his latest online offering over at the Huffington Post where today he launched the site s first Scripture commentary series Here is the editors introduction The series will bring together leading voices from different religiou