John F. Kavanaugh

Twenty years ago I worked in Zimbabwe. It was a joy. Filling in for a philosophy professor at the major seminary in Chishawasha, not far from the capital city, Harare, I encountered a group of uncommonly eager and bright students, thrilled to discuss the history of the early church, intent on seeing

On the day I write this column, The New York Times has published side by side on its front page two articles that embody the divergent possibilities of our future in Iraq. The United States, contrary to all previous statements, will join Iran and Syria in talks on Iraq. As the Iraq Study Group had e

Time magazine’s person of the year was a mirror: Behold YOU. Yourself. You can do it. You did it. Be all you can be. YouTube. You are the star. It is a proclamation of pure, absolute narcissism. The world ends at my face. Me. My space. My autonomy. I rule my world. Perhaps the deepest moral ch

A newly fashionable atheism has emerged in public discourse. Religious faith, in this account, is not only quaint; it is dangerous. In a recent conference titled Science, Religion, Reason and Survival, sponsored by the Templeton Foundation, religion took a beating. Steven Weinberg, a Nobel laureate