Throughout a long career as a novelist, essayist, short story writer, poet and screenwriter, Ron Hansen has regularly explored questions of faith and religious belonging.
James T. Keane
James T. Keane is a Senior Editor at America.
Posted inFaith, Scripture Reflections
The danger of reducing miracles
A Reflection for the Memorial of St. Scholastica, virgin, by James T. Keane
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Langston Hughes: Communist, Christian—or both?
Langston Hughes, the great Black poet, playwright, journalist and author, had a nuanced and not easily categorized religious life.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
This liberation theologian was once silenced by the Vatican. In the Laudato Si’ era, he’s getting a second look.
After the publication of “Laudato Si’,” rumors circulated that Pope Francis had personally asked Leonardo Boff for his input on the writing of the encyclical. It marked an ironic turn in the theologian’s long career.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Who’s in hell? Hans Urs von Balthasar had thoughts.
Is hell empty? Pope Francis hopes so. Among the thinkers of the past century who speculated it could be so was Hans Urs von Balthasar, a favorite of the past two popes and a prominent theologian of his time.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
John W. Donohue: an ascetic Jesuit and bane of Christopher Hitchens
John W. Donohue, S.J., an associate editor of America from 1972 to 2007, was described by one Jesuit on staff as “a living rule. Were the Society of Jesus ever to lose its Constitutions, we would need only look to him to see how our life should be lived.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Short Take
Belichick’s downfall reminds us: Put not your faith in head coaches (or popes)
This week, the New England Patriots parted ways with their legendary head coach, Bill Belichick. Did he get too much credit for the team’s success?
Posted inFaith, Features
Bill Russell, K.C. Jones and the Black players who made basketball history at San Francisco’s Jesuit university
Men’s college basketball’s finest squad did not come from one of the N.C.A.A. powerhouses of the past three decades, but from the University of San Francisco, where Bill Russell led the team to consecutive national championships in 1955 and 1956.
Posted inFaith, Scripture Reflections
When we pray for what we want—and God gives us something else
A Reflection for Friday of the First Week in Ordinary Time, by James T. Keane
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Jesuit George Dunne loved a good fight—and hated injustice
George Dunne, S.J., never backed down from a fight or a perceived injustice in a long career as a priest, academic and activist.