

Fully Formed: A customized approach to seminary education
All priests are in service to the church. The church, in turn, is in service to all humanity.
Americans often complain that presidential candidates lack variety. Not this year.
Despite the many pronouncements that the 2016 presidential election cycle is completely unprecedented, the biggest foreign policy debates in which this year’s candidates are engaged are actually very old.
Of Many Things
Was Pope Benedict really a ‘liberal’ turned ‘conservative’?
Deconstructionists, those intellectuals who make it their job to ask critical questions about our long-cherished collective stories, like to ask, among other things, who or what cause is best served by a given narrative. They might ask, for example, whose interests are served by a story that tells o
Letters
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An Open InvitationSuperintendents and the National Catholic Educational Association respond to “Reinventing Catholic Schools,” by Charles Zech (8/29).Charles Zech fails to mention the incredible work being done in Catholic schools across the country today. As the superintendents of Catho
Editorials
Georgetown repents for its history of slavery. Will we?
How will we account for the signs of sin we encounter today?
Books
David Walsh attempts to convey the incredible privilege of being a person
The central insight of David Walsh’s book is that “the person is transcendence.”
Guantánamo—is this American justice?
Guantánamo Diary belongs in a canon of great social justice memoirs not only for the unique context in which the story was written but also for its power and eloquence.
It’s the end of the world. What do you do? Read America’s Review of Don DeLillo’s ‘Zero K’ for a new take on the apocalypse.
“Ordinary moments make the life”—not the catastrophe that we humans experience, or imagine we will one day experience.
Theater
The church has profound truths to speak about sexuality. Why is no one listening?
There are radiant truths within these Catholic documents. And then, it seems, the darker shroud of Rome is thrown down and ruins it all.
Poetry
At the Edge of Mississippi
the murky water veiled those pleas the history books obscure as when numbers steal prisoners’ names.
The Word
Jesus calls the slaves in this parable “worthless.” How can this be?
“We have done only what we ought to have done” (Lk 17:10)
Columns
How to lose your (sexual) freedom
Social justice categories are applied to questions of sex, and the church is found wanting.
Current Comment
Loneliness is a public health crisis. Catholic parishes can help.
Catholic parishes must help to alleviate what some have termed an “epidemic of loneliness.”
Angela Merkel’s days in office may be numbered.
To do right is never easy.
President Obama must not forget his commitment to reduce the role of nuclear weapons.
Today, a single atom bomb dropped on a major city would immediately kill hundreds of thousands.
Faith
Was Pope Benedict really a ‘liberal’ turned ‘conservative’?
Deconstructionists, those intellectuals who make it their job to ask critical questions about our long-cherished collective stories, like to ask, among other things, who or what cause is best served by a given narrative. They might ask, for example, whose interests are served by a story that tells o
First Monday
Who gets to vote, and how?
Pope Francis reminds us, “Participation in political life is a moral obligation.”
Generation Faith
“I hadn’t set foot in a church since my father passed away.” A JV talks about “steering” her way back to God.
My faith is rooted in the tradition of my family, a line of Irish Catholics.
Of Other Things
In Defense of Suffering
Have we become tone deaf to the concept of sacrifice and suffering?
Signs Of the Times
News Briefs
Honoring Star Trek’s 50th anniversary in September, the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said the popular series gave the world a model of peace, tolerance and cooperation at a time of global tensions. • After a Polish immigrant was beaten to death by a teenage mob in Harlow,
65 people were shot this summer.
Chicago’s long, hot summer of shootings came to an end over the three-day Labor Day weekend, with 65 people shot, 13 fatally, as homicides climbed toward 500 for the year. August was already on record as the city’s deadliest month in more than two decades.The wounded included a youn
Bishop Removed
AsiaNews, the Rome-based missionary news agency, reported on Sept. 8 that Chinese authorities had taken Coadjutor Bishop Peter Shao Zhumin of Wenzhou, China, out of the diocese to northwest China “on a trip.” Local faithful said it was to prevent him from taking possession of the diocese
Gang violence in Ireland has a new, deadly directive
Once over money and territory, violence in the country has taken a more destructive turn.
Why mining operations are failing
Large-scale mining and extractive operations are failing to deliver economic benefits while causing environmental damage and human suffering throughout Latin America.
Praying for racial justice
“We hope to highlight the importance of prayer as a reasonable and efficacious response to the violence that has touched too many communities in our nation.”
Sisters Defy Outdated Perceptions By Taking Vocations ‘to the Edges’
Sister Sandy Sherman thought she would follow the traditional route of women religious, joining the ranks of the Catholic teachers who had inspired her.“I thought I would enter and I would teach school my whole life and I would wear a habit,” said Sherman, who joined the Order of Saint U
Vatican Dispatch
3 days. 7 religions. 1 goal: Peace
There is an urgent need to reject the use of God’s name to justify violence.






