It takes a European to ask this I know And I tread gingerly here - at least by my own largely ginger-free standards Only nbsp whatever happened to the death penalty as a moral priority for Catholics in the US presidential election Why don t they challenge their candidates on the issue It

Vineyards are one of the most powerful and pervasive symbols in the Bible with lots of stories involving them variously in both testaments The vineyard scenario is rich and malleable with changes able to be rung easily Today Isaiah s vineyard song the psalm snippet and Jesus parable all

We are at another occasion somewhat vaguely Mark joins disparate episodes into his coherent story Mark introduces us to a situation noted before where Jesus teaches large crowds so large that this time he teaches from a boat But new here is a use of parables those stories which are fictiti

Fr Jim Martin introduces centering prayer a freer form of meditation than lectio divina or Ignatian contemplation Visit our Youtube page for all of Fr Jim s videos Tim Reidy

Today rsquo s New York Times contains a story about the Community Synagogue in NYC east 6th Street and its hiring of a Lubavitcher rabbi Simon Jacobson to attract the spiritually curious and thus help save an aging congregation Part of the theological provocation of the story is that what man

In 1936 near the end of the election campaign a Roman Catholic priest gave a nationwide radio address endorsing Franklin Delano Roosevelt for re-election In this critical hour I urge you to use every effort at your command among your relatives friends and acquaintances in support of Franklin D

'The Word of God should lead to love of neighbor.'

Reading Paul, Worsening Health Care Coverage, A Neighbor in Need

Communicating God's presence through preaching and proclamation

In writing this short reflection on lectio divina in relationship to the coming Synod of Bishops. I was again forcefully reminded of the great watershed that the Second Vatican Council has been for Roman Catholics and for all other Christian churches. For 400 years following the Counter-Reformation,

James Howard Kunstler rsquo s novel begins in the pastoral setting of a riverbank where the narrator Robert Earle and his best friend Loren Holder have concluded a successful fishing excursion Although they are slightly intoxicated by the natural beauty around them and by some home-made wine th

The wonders of Lourdes in its jubilee year

'What a wonderful device an apostolic lens might be.'

Catholics Worldwide Reach Out to Haiti Catholic relief agencies and parishes worldwide are responding to the devastation in Haiti, which has been battered by four severe hurricanes. Caritas Internationalis, the umbrella organization for 162 national Catholic charity organizations, is seeking $4.3 mi

A Catholic approach to the Hebrew Bible

This new selection of C S Lewis rsquo s letters on spiritual matters makes good reading even for someone already conversant with Lewis rsquo s life and work Compiled by the longtime Lewis scholar and enthusiast Paul F Ford Yours Jack is reader-friendly The subtitle suggests that the collectio

The Synod on the Word of God is truly a monumental event for the church. Now that the final agenda for the synod is available with the publication in May of its working document (called in Latin an instrumentum laboris, IL), it is useful to consider how the agenda can help implement the church&rsquo

Alan Jacobs' 'Original Sin,' reviewed