The 55th annual meeting of the College Theology Society at the University of Notre Dame this past weekend continued the necessary work begun last month by the Notre Dame community and their commencement honorees in claiming and expanding the common ground for a unified Catholic witness to a more ju

Everything about the murder of Dr George Tiller in Wichita yesterday is tragic First Dr Tiller had a family and friends who have lost their husband father brother and neighbor Because the murder happened in his church Tiller rsquo s fellow church-goers will doubtlessly be traumatized in a un

There are two powerful sobering elements to the slaying of the doctor who performed late-term abortions in Kansas The first is that he was gunned down in his church shortly after the service had begun in front of his wife The second is that it happened on Pentecost Pro-lifers have rushed to co

How nice this side of the Atlantic to awake to Fr Jim on the BBC speaking of the appointments nominations of Sotomayor and Diaz Catch it here sliding almost to the end of the program at 22 55

While way too many people in the Catholic blogosphere were way too concerned with whether Father Alberto nbsp Cutie should have left nbsp Holy Mother Church nbsp so quickly or whether Judge Sonia Sotomayor was sufficiently Catholic Massgoer or just occasional Massgoer or just how much of a lib

In his book The Future of Liberalism Alan Wolfe posits that in addition to philosophic and procedural liberalism there is such a thing as a liberal temperament an openness to debate an inquisitiveness and curiosity about the world a horror of bigotry and an optimistic appraisal of human possibil

Father Alberto Cutie sorry I can t figure out how to do accents but he gets one on the e has left the Catholic church and has been received into the Episcopal church in Miami after having decided that he could no longer live nbsp the nbsp promise of celibacy he made at his ordination nbsp

The newly nominated U S ambassador to the Holy See Miguel H Diaz a nbsp superb choice a Latino Catholic a recognition of the enormous influence of Latinos in the U S church a professor of theology with terrific credentials St Thomas Notre Dame Collegeville and a Rahner scholar to boot

I certainly had not planned on spending my evening nbsp with Miguel Diaz rsquo s book On Being Human U S Hispanic and Rahnerian Perspectives But then word came that he was about to be named the U S ambassador to the Vatican and so I had to turn off Law amp Order and read this exercise in

--When I waxed enthusiastic to a friend about seeing this movie she said ldquo How can you be so rapturous about a film about a suicide rdquo But suicide is not what the film is about Nor does one come away from the film feeling depressed mdash just the opposite The goodness of Solo and his

nbsp It is so kind of George Will to explain Judge Sotomayor rsquo s beliefs to the rest of us And like conventional liberals she embraces identity politics including the idea of categorical representation A person is what his or her race ethnicity gender or sexual preference is and membe

nbsp nbsp nbsp When we were newlyweds my husband and I played a silly game that we called Life is a Musical We d make up dramatic arias and ballads and rhymes about the most mundane parts of our daily lives Then we d sing to each other about doing the dishes or sweeping the porch or slicin

The very talented Judge Sonia Sotomayor President Obama s choice for Supreme Court justice is as you ve probably heard a Roman Catholic and the product of Catholic schooling nbsp As a result the unfortunate question How Catholic was bound to come up nbsp Frankly the only person who can

In an op ed for the Irish Times Archbishop Diarmiud Martin of Dublin confronts the abuse report head on What was lost was more than just a charism Somehow along the way the most essential dimension of the life of the followers of Jesus Christ got lost by many The Christian message is a message o

A colleague of mine regularly gives students in her Christian Belief Ancient and Modern course a question on the role of the Holy Spirit The lead in to the question is a headline from The Onion America rsquo s Finest News Source February 26 2003 ldquo God Quietly Phasing Holy Ghost Out Of Tri

It took just about an hour for Americans United for Life a pro-life lobbying outfit to denounce the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor rsquo s judicial philosophy undermines common ground the group said in a press release She is a radical pick that

Perhaps only the estimable Dave Gibson Beliefnet and ahem Commonweal blogger and author of The Rule of Benedict could see--and make--the connections between Carrie Prejean the controversial Miss California Queen Esther the biblical heroine Katharine Harris and Sarah Palin nbsp Gibson

Catholic insiders are still trying to figure out the answer to two different questions With no official White House liaison to the Catholic Church do the President rsquo s unofficial liaisons from the Vice-President to the Faith-Based Office do they have influence within the administration And

Elaine Showalter s book is a delightful literary voyage guided by a woman who truly knows the territory Neither an anthology nor an academic critique it is something quite original the first informed popular literary history of American women writers It was inspired by a question this distingui