Can you be friends with a person who never knew you even existed? If the answer to these questions is yes, then I am friends with Thomas Merton.
Angela Alaimo O'Donnell
Angela Alaimo O’Donnell teaches literature and creative writing at Fordham University and serves as associate director of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. Her poetry collection The View from Childhood (Paraclete Press) is forthcoming in 2026,
Posted inPoetry
INCARNATION
What did she know of birthing?
Despite dear Joseph’s steadfast love
she’d need to do this alone.
Posted inArts & Culture, Ideas
Pope Francis loved literature and film—and artists loved him for it
Pope Francis trusted the imagination and regarded it as a gift from God. Instead of being suspicious and fearful of its power, he urged artists to follow its promptings.
Posted inArt, Arts & Culture
At the Metropolitan Museum, art communes with the saints in ‘Siena: The Rise of Painting’
A once in a lifetime exhibit of Italian paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York reminds us of the foundations of our faith.
Posted inArts & Culture, Faith
Judas Kiss
his own hands bound by his will, they offer no resistance, to those he knows will kill
Posted inArts & Culture, Music
Bronx bluesman and self-proclaimed ‘ferocious Catholic’: Dion DiMucci considers his legacy
Dion a great artist who continues to write and record music even now. But he is also a devoted Catholic, having returned to the faith of his childhood in midlife.
Posted inArts & Culture, Film
Ethan Hawke’s new biopic ‘Wildcat’ gracefully captures Flannery O’Connor’s complex attitudes on race, writing and faith
“Wildcat,” the new film by Ethan Hawke about the life of Flannery O’Connor, is not your typical biopic, a fact that seems entirely appropriate since O’Connor is not your typical writer.
Posted inArts & Culture, Film
‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ and the dark Catholic imagination of Martin McDonagh
Martin McDonagh’s new movie “The Banshees of Inisherin” serves up sad enough stuff to leave viewers crying in our beer. But first we laugh.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
‘Talking Back to Dante’: A tribute in verse
Writing in honor of Dante and in conversation with him, Angela O’Donnell recognizes the enormous impact his imagination had on our worldview.