In his book Things You Get For Free Michael McGirr tells the story of going on pilgrimage to Rome with his mother Maureen McGirr had always wanted to see St Peter s Basilica Michael records the big day One of the features of a visit to St Peter s is the modesty inspection This is the ki

July 1st is the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Daniel Harrington notes that the Gospel reading from Luke marks the start of an important journey for Jesus and his disciples The journey moves from northern Galilee to Jerusalem and focuses on two themes the identity of Jesus Christology and

An RSS feed is now available for The Good Word RSS is short for really simple syndication and allows you to gather content from a variety of Web sites and deliver it to your browser or favorite home page By subscribing you ll be notified as soon as there is a new post on The Good Word

To celebrate the feast of St Aloysius Gonzaga S J 1568-1591 the liturgy offers the Eucharistic community the choice of three Gospel readings Matthew 6 7-15 Mark 10 23-31 and John 1 35-40 The first reading underlines the kind of prayer that pleases God for content the Our Father for ma

The American political drama West Wing has been a huge hit on television in recent seasons Well-scripted cleverly cast and finely acted it dramatizes events around the most powerful office in the world This is one drama series that does not need to invent stories With former White House insid

Daniel Harrington s commentary on the Birth of St John the Baptist can be found here The feast did not fall on a Sunday in 2004 so there is no commentary from Dianne Bergant But you can read John H Donahue s column from 2001 here

With the publication of the report of the fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it should now be clear to everyone that climate change is one of the most serious ethical issues facing humanity in the 21st century. Even President George W. Bush, after almost a decade of denial, has used t

Wed scatter at our fathers thunder bark:

A small but important collection of ingeniously designed yet simple-to-use devices from around the globe is currently on display at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum (part of the Smithsonian Institution) in New York City, where it will be on view until Sept. 23. Organized outdoors in the lush

In his beautiful and moving Letters to Sam, Daniel Gottlieb, a renowned psychologist who has lived with quadriplegia for 25 years, imparts uncommon wisdom about the lifelong journey of becoming a man.

America Video: Fr. James Martin talks about the spiritual value of humor.

Tragedy struck the family of Francisco-Javier Domínguez Rivera, a 22-year-old native of the State of Puebla in Mexico, in mid-January 2007. Francisco was shot to death by a U.S. Border Patrol agent while attempting to cross the desert between Bisbee and Douglas, Ariz. The agent reported that he had

Susannah Heschel, daughter of Jewish thinker Abraham Heschel, discusses his father's life and work.

The importance of solitude

Thousands of young volunteers are a bright spot amidst the city's slow recovery.

When will the United States draw down its troops occupying Iraq? In the political showdown between the president and the Congress over the war in Iraq, attention has focused on legislating a specific timetable for troop withdrawal. This issue will be revisited in September, when debate over war fund

A new book traces the development of human rights.

NEGOTIATING WITH IRAN The meeting of the U.S. ambassador to Iraq with the Iranian ambassador to Iraq in Baghdad on May 28, under the auspices of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, was an encouraging step in the direction urged by the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group. The meetings agenda