We received a delightful surprise in the mail this week At the 24th annual Genesis Awards presented by the Humane Society of the United States America received honorable mention for ldquo Animal Welfare rdquo by Kate Blake March 23 2009 which focused on our responsibility to all creation T

As regular readers of America will know the magazine has provided thoughtful and balanced commentary on the sexual abuse crisis since the reports of scandal first surfaced in the Boston Globe in 2002 Here we provide an archive of of our coverage featuring articles from Thomas Reese Cardinal Aver

Even if you don t agree with all he writes and I don t Hans nbsp K uuml ng is a theologian of great learning distinction nbsp and experience nbsp He s forgotten more theology and church history than I will ever know nbsp And even if you don t agree with all he writes in his open letter to the

Living in the same Jesuit community as Dan Berrigan--what a privilege to share meals and conversation with this great man an icon of the anti-war movement who was willing to spend time behind bars to assert his opposition to war-related violence and in fact all forms of violence including abortio

This morning rsquo s appointment of Bishop Thomas Wenski as the next Archbishop of Miami is welcome for a variety of reasons some close to home and some noteworthy for changes on the Vatican rsquo s selection criteria for bishops Most immediately Wenski came to national prominence on the strength

Rarely has the U S Catholic community been so publicly at odds over a social policy matter as the U S bishops and U S women religious communities were in the climax of the health care reform debate in March The bishops applying what can only be described as speculative interpretations of the pl

Nuntio vobis gaudium magnum nbsp Habemus papam I rsquo ll not forget the moment Pope Benedict XVI was elected five years ago today I was on the hill above St Peter rsquo s Square in the BBC tent going live for the umpteenth time The cardinals had been in conclave for two days and the British

Dietrich Bonhoeffer remarked in his famous prison letters about his gratitude for life among prisoners who were not pious noting his surprise at what life was like with them In a very different context I too have found compelling the desacralized spaces of secular culture In rock culture

One of the many deeply disturbing aspects of the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church has been the lack of discussion about penance nbsp While public apologies from bishops who protected abusive priests are becoming more common doing penance to atone for individual sins is still too rare n

Father Martin has already called attention to an article in yesterday rsquo s New York Times by Nicholas Kristof although it is a mystery to me why Father applied the adjective excellent to it I found the article literally dripping in the kind of misplaced moral and intellectual superiority to wh

Uplifting news from Malta where Pope Benedict recently concluded his visit by a surprise private meeting with eight clerical sex abuse victims A Vatican statement said the Pope was deeply moved by their stories and expressed his shame and sorrow over what victims and their families have

Recently I came home to hear my four year old daughter listening to a CD which has entranced her making her memorize words melodies song order It turns out she is also memorizing poetry A relative bought for her the new Natalie Merchant record Leave Your Sleep Music critic Jon Pareles

Two excellent articles in the Sunday papers today shed light rather than heat on the sexual abuse crisis nbsp First off David Gibson has a terrific piece in the Washington Post entitled Five Myths about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal nbsp The myths are 1 Pope Benedict is the primary culpr

Speaking on NPR s Weekend Edition with Scott Simon on the need for penance and some of the causes of the sexual abuse crisis nbsp Weekend Edition is one of the sanest places to discuss these issues I think nbsp The link to NPR is here

Normally the charge of lunacy is a bit ad hominem for these pages But what if the charge of lunacy is actually exculpatory like a plea of temporary insanity at a murder trial I raise the issue because a large number of Tea Party folk who descended upon Washington yesterday to commemorate tax d

Pope Benedict XVI - Catholics like me have been insisting these past weeks on TV and radio - is a key part of the solution to the clerical sexual abuse crisis which is why the media attempt to scapegoat him is so misguided Indeed what has surfaced from the recent firestorm is how providential it

President Obama amplifying remarks of former Secretaty of State Condolezza Rice during the Bush administration and more recently by Vice President Biden and CENTCOM s General David Petreaus said something out loud that appears radical but is actually rather obvious resolving the long-running Mid

Why did the U S bishops fight the health care bill until the end even when President Obama signed an executive order prohibiting the use of federal funds for abortion The bill may now be law but questions still linger In this Web-only article Nicholas P Cafardi of Duquesne University School o

I m always up for something new and fun especially if it s just down the street nbsp Anyway when the good people at Bigthink a hip new website nbsp called me up for series of interviews in their way-cool downtown studio I was game nbsp They ask all sorts of experts sitting in front of

Cambridge MA You may recall from Jim Martin rsquo s kind notice in January that on July 1 I will become director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard I haven rsquo t done a thing yet but the Center moves along steadily and indeed has become venerable this week marking it