As indicated in an earlier blog in THE GOOD WORD there are a number of passages in the writings of St Paul which suggest understandings of and limitations on women that seem unreasonable nbsp It is too long a project to analyze here all of these passages - indeed a fair and final nbsp evaluat

When asked to paint the Sistine Chapel in Rome Michelangelo followed a scheme in which he alternates Jewish prophets with pagan oracles nbsp His goal was to offer the viewer the Christian belief that all wisdom whether it be Jewish or pagan looks to one person Jesus Christ himself also

For terminal politicos like me last night was a much coveted but rarely experienced moment of real political drama No one knew what was going to happen in yesterday s Iowa caucuses This just doesn t happen in elections any more and it was fun to watch There is more than enough analysis of th

Get ready for the start of the Jesuits 35th General Congregation whose first order or nearly first order of business will be to elect a new superior general of the worldwide Society of Jesus The new General will succeed Peter-Hans Kolvenbach SJ the Dutch Jesuit who has served in the posi

My office neighbor Pat Kossman America s literary editor is super neat A place for everything and everything in its place is my impression of her take on the issue That is not mine at all First-time visitors to my own office tend to look about in dismay at papers and books on every flat

This Slate article on IVF appeared a few weeks ago but is worth revisiting for the ethical questions it raises The author makes the case that fertility doctors should encourage couples struggling to have children to go straight to IVF rather than first trying fertility medication and then art

Cambridge MA -- I am still deciding how to blog and it will take a while to figure out what I can write -- that America readers will find interesting But I am sure that I must write of and from what I know and central to this has to be also my teaching and my scholarly writing I will have am

The ancients in general seem to have understood that diverse deities existed related competed--and that the question for human discernment and commitment was which one whose was the real God Today s first reading from Isaiah can be understood in that way Perhaps generated from amid a wider

Hmmmm like Tom Beaudoin I too have never blogged Unlike Tom perhaps and anyone reading this blog I don t typically read blogs I ve perused skimmed is more precise only a handful and generally I ve only done that when a blog entry is embedded in an on-line article To be honest

For me as a student of the Greco-Roman era the word Epiphany has certain connotations attached to it which are hard to shake and they all revolve around one man Antiochus IV Epiphanes As told in 1 Maccabees 1-2 and 2 Maccabees 5-7 Antiochus attempted to annihilate Judaism which initially he pr

In his poem Desiderata Max Ehrmann states You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars People today have come to see that they are not over and against nature but embedded in it in the very creative matrix that has given them life and that continues to give l

The story of the Innocents is only two verses long but serves at least two purposes for Matthew s story about Jesus nbsp First it exemplifies the furor of Herod the Great at the possibility that a King of the Jews had been born after all Herod be decree of Rome was King of the Jews

Last night CBS reran The Mystery of Christmas which cast doubt or at least tried to on some of the more popular parts of the Christmas narratives including the shepherds the magi and so on Ben Witherington III professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary did his usual fi

St Stephen reminds us 1 In his lengthy speech in Acts 7 the point is made that worship even the glorious worship of God by Israel is now to be made through the person of Jesus There is much amiss in the worship offered to the Father from which His Son is rejected all goals of worship are ac

Matthew s first line in today s Gospel speaks of how the birth of Jesus Christ came about nbsp His story is a gathering of strong traditions already existing in the Christian world of the Mediterranean Basic St Paul s letters are good examples of this already existing tradition nb

Lourdes at 150: a pilgrims' guide, reviewed

It is sometimes hard to believe that dirty-faced shepherds were Jesus' first royal retinue.

Flannery O’Connor died during the Second Vatican Council, while the bishops were writing anew what she had always known: that the church is the body of Christ, the people of God; that laypeople are its flesh and blood; and that the clergy and religious orders are its servant-leaders. While O&#

The social worker and I belonged to the same parish, but we were merely acquaintances. So I was surprised when she called to ask whether anyone at our farm might be willing to take in a mother who had given birth during the night. There were perhaps 50 committed adults living at Koinonia Partners In

Fatal Love In the Signs of the Times story about Franz Jägerstätter (11/12), the author writes, Blessed Jägerstätter was beatified as a martyr, which means he was killed out of hatred for the faith. In other words, someones hate got Franz into heaven. But such is decidedly not the case. It is in