Sisters Today
Several journalists have recently weighed in on the status of women’s religious life in recent years: Ann Carey’s Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of Women’s Religious Life (1997); John Fialka’s Sisters: Catholic Nuns and the Making of America (2003); Cheryl L. Reed&r
Double-Crossed or Not?
A well-researched study of the negative dynamic that developed between the Catholic hierarchy and women religious in the United States in the decades following the Second Vatican Council has appeared as Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns (Doubleday), by
Religious Life at the Brink
This year the Conference of Major Superiors of Men Religious and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious celebrate their 50th anniversaries. These vibrant organizations include most of the leadership of religious communities in the United States and have served well their members and the church
Religious You Will Always Have With You
I have met many LAY Christians who put professional religious to shame by their dedication, their service and their heartfelt love of God. I have encountered many lifestyles that seem much more based on Gospel values than formalized vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Sometimes religious life f
Violence, Compassion and World Religions: An interview with Karen Armstrong
In your writings on religion, you have given particular emphasis to questions of justice and peace. Do you believe these issues to be at the core of religious belief?Justice is an aspect of compassion that is one of the subjects I write about in The Great Transformation. Justice, if you like, is the
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
When traffic on the Midtown cross streets and East Side avenues of New York City is backed up day after day; when police and police barricades appear at intersections, in front of hotels and before public buildings; when lines of black sedans and S.U.V.’s fill entire city blocks and dour men a
Letters
Letters
Effective Preaching
Camille D’Arienzo, R.S.M., (Preaching: A Ministry [Still] in Distress 9/18) has it exactly right. The church needs better preaching. This seemed especially urgent after hearing Walter Burghardt, S.J., on several occasions and recognizing the impact of great preaching. I agree as well that the restriction on nonordained preaching at Mass has diminished the effectiveness…
Editorials
Disenfranchised Americans
November’s midterm elections are approaching, but over five million Americans, in nearly all 50 states, will be denied the right to cast ballots. Why? Because they are current or prior felony offenders who cannot exercise a right guaranteed them in the Constitution. Two million of them have co
Faith in Focus
Rotten Fruit
Until I lived in a homeless shelter, I did not know how bad things could getonions and grapes and bananas. That bananas could mold I never considered. An old banana went black and shrunk into itself, like a mummy; it could be frozen and revived later, slid from the peel into a bowl like a…
Books
Sages of a Pivotal Age
Karen Armstrong rsquo s latest book covers arguably the most ambitious topic that she has yet attempted The scope is vast covering multiple continents cultures and chronologies Hundreds of years dozens of major figures and a landscape that stretches from Mount Olympus to the Great Wall of China
Lost Connections
Charles D rsquo Ambrosio says that as a young man he turned to fiction in part as a Daedalian act of snobbery against aspects of his Jesuit education In an essay on J D Salinger published in 2001 D rsquo Ambrosio recounts how during his time at Seattle Prep reading Joyce and other modern write
Somebody Wake Him Up
Talk about heroic labors To flesh out the tale of his quirky Irish-American theologian Fr Eddie Danaher George McCauley a New York Jesuit invents major chunks of history an imaginary religious order the Christian Fathers founded in the 16th century by a swashbuckling Portuguese explorer-tur
Poetry
Mrs. Groves
I had never bathed anyone but a child before and it was
The Word
Images of Servant Leadership
As our political campaigns draw near to election day we hear much talk about leadership While we tend to know it when we see it leadership is hard to define and does not seem to follow any one pattern or formula Today rsquo s Scripture readings describe leadership as the service of others and po
Columns
Charlie’s Tantrums
After watching her autistic son struggle through a difficult school year, Kristina Chew joined the blogosphere in what she calls a moment of desperation. Charlie Fisher, her 9-year-old son, seemed to have stopped making progress. Worse, he was having tantrums, banging his head violently and hurting
Current Comment
Current Comment
Nigerias Potent CocktailNigeria is the 10th largest oil producer in the world, and its delta region provides much of America’s oil needs. But because the nation is plagued by violence, corruption and environmental degradation, the resulting wealth benefits few of its poorest inhabitants. The I
News
Signs of the Times
Patriarch’s Hopes for Papal Visit to TurkeyEcumenical Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople said he hopes Pope Benedict XVI’s November trip to Turkey will help calm recent tensions with Islam and advance his church’s struggle for religious rights. Patriarch Bartholomew,
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts