Much of the story of the Second Vatican Council was first told to Americans by Xavier Rynne in The New Yorker. But who was Rynne?
James T. Keane
James T. Keane is a Senior Editor at America.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Joyce Kilmer: soldier, writer and lost voice in the American Catholic literary revival
Among the 53,000 Americans killed in World War I was Joyce Kilmer, a distinguished poet and essayist who died in battle at the age of 31.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Remembering Martin Amis: literary bad boy—and an unexpected moralist
Martin Amis leaves behind a remarkable corpus of fiction, essays and memoir—even if he could be eminently dislikable.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
What Dorothy Day had to say about Dolores Huerta and the struggle for worker justice
A worker’s advocate, feminist leader and civil rights proponent whose work continues today at the age of 93, Dolores Huerta was an under-recognized leader.
Posted inFaith, Scripture Reflections
If your faith has begun to feel like work, read today’s Gospel
A Reflection for Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter, by James T. Keane
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
César Chávez’s life of prophetic action
The combination of religious faith and prophetic political action that marked César Chávez’s hunger strikes would become typical of many other moments in his long career as a labor organizer turned American icon.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
The mystery of Thomas Merton’s death—and the witness of America magazine’s poetry editor
John Moffitt, the longtime poetry editor of ‘America,’ met Thomas Merton the week Merton died, and wrote of the account for ‘America.’
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
The unexpected connection between J. D. Salinger, Swami Vivekananda and the poetry editor of America magazine
John Moffitt, the poetry editor of America, was also a regular correspondent with everyone from famous Hindu swamis to J. D. Salinger to Thomas Merton.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Shusaku Endo, ‘Silence’ and the challenges of Christian life in Japan
Shusaku Endo may not have liked the title “greatest Japanese Catholic novelist,” but his works—including ‘Silence’—are powerful meditations on the nature of belief and the vitality and viability of Christianity.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: The invitation to everyday holiness found in spiritual memoirs
In ‘Our Hearts Are Restless: The Art of Spiritual Memoir,’ Richard Lischer explores classics of “an intimate genre, perhaps the most intimate.”