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"I take on as my primary task the duty to work tirelessly to rebuild the full and visible unity of all Christ’s followers,” said Benedict XVI in his first message after being elected. Primary task, one might well ask? Is this primary task of full, visible Christian unity something t

First a confession: I did not want to write this article. Working as an editor at a Catholic magazine, I have grown tired of reading articles about The Da Vinci Code. Every week brings another book or essay detailing the errors of Dan Brown’s bestseller, which now boasts 40 million copies sold

The real-life group with the biggest complaint about the movie The Da Vinci Code is surely Opus Dei, the Catholic organization founded to promote lay spirituality. One of the film’s main plot devices centers on Silas, the albino Opus Dei monk who moonlights as an assassin. That Opus includes n

The Perkiomen valley, some 40 miles north of Philadelphia, may initially appear to have little to connect it with The Da Vinci Code. But travel there to the small town of Pennsburg, Pa., and mention St. Sulpice or Opus Dei in the local diner and you are likely to receive a surprising response. Nothi

The Da Vinci Code is a systematic attack on the divinity of Jesus Christ. The book’s author, Dan Brown, pursues his quarry with an obsessiveness that overrides good storytelling technique. And Brown’s characters (supposedly in mortal danger, always just one step ahead of being captured)

For centuries, Mark’s Gospel shared the fate of Cinderella in the well-known German folktale. As Cinderella languished in the kitchen until rescued by her prince, Mark suffered almost total eclipse by its three longer fellows (Matthew, Luke and John). A century and a half ago, in scholarly cir

Thirty-eight years after its publication, the encyclical Humanae Vitae is once again causing a stir. The Italian weekly L’Espresso featured in its April 21 issue an extended dialogue between the bioethicist Ignazio Marino and the retired Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Carlo Martini, S.J. (For t

When Joseph Ratzinger chose Benedict XVI as his papal name, commentators quickly and correctly pointed out its significance. And in the year since his election, the new pope’s actions have borne out many of those expectations. His warm meeting and dinner last September with Hans Küng—th

It does not take parents very long to realize that they teach their children not so much by what they say as by who they are. Their presence, their choices, their lives, their being speak to their children in the deepest way. The same can be said of true educators, whose teaching reaches beyond tech

Large-scale humanitarian crises of various kinds periodically rivet the attention of the world. Among the challenges of the humanitarian agencies that respond to them, however, is the struggle to address needs arising from others as wellpeople in need who receive less attention. The Columbia Univers