Of Many Things
How pro-choice activists (inadvertently) converted me to the pro-life cause
My conversion to the pro-life cause began, strangely enough, when I took part in a pro-choice march.
Your Take
What is the biggest obstacle to forming stable families?
“Once marriage is redefined as a personal instead of a social institution, it makes no sense to stick it out through even moderately bad times.”
The Letters
Conversation. Care. Courage. Presence. This kind of writing feeds my soul. Thank you.
Editorials
Pro-life goals need to be more ambitious than opposing abortion
As necessary as opposition to abortion and funding for it are, they are not sufficient pro-life goals, especially when achieving them eliminates support for other programs that support maternal health.
‘Law and Order’ should not mean wiping out civil rights protections
Public safety and protecting the civil rights of citizens are not competing goals.
Short Take
To fight climate change, we need to improve capitalism, not get rid of it
It is time for a reorientation toward socially conscious investing.
Dispatches
Abortion is proving that the Democratic Party can outdo Republicans in self-destruction
The expulsion of pro-life candidates may doom the Democrats to minority status.
Wave of murders rattles Mexican journalists
Four attacks on reporters in such a short timespan have shocked Mexico, already a country press freedom organizations say is one the most dangerous in the Western Hemisphere for journalists.
Anti-Semitism increased last year, especially during the election
The Anti-Defamation League found evidence that anti-Jewish bias intensified during the election.
Georgetown liturgy does penance for sale of 272 enslaved people in 1838
Georgetown University and the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States began a process of penance and restitution, acknowledging an institutional sin in 1838 which preserved the university but condemned 272 to slavery in Louisiana.
Features
The church doesn’t talk enough about postpartum depression. These Catholic women are changing that.
For Catholic women experiencing postpartum depression and anxiety, faith and faith communities can be a lifeline—but also a potential source of guilt, shame or frustration.
In Venezuela, the Catholic Church endures among a revolution’s ruins
When the state becomes predatory, the defenders of the faith are called upon to point people in the right direction, away from the violence of the authorities and back to God.
Faith in Focus
Father Greg Boyle: I thought I could “save” gang members. I was wrong.
Me wanting a gang member to have a different life would never be the same as that gang member wanting to have one.
My daughter has a disability. I don’t want Jesus to ‘fix’ her.
On the subject of disability, I found a Jesus that is, frankly, disappointing.
Ideas
Reflecting on the frightening lessons of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
If anyone doubted the damage a shallow, sanitized Marian ideal of womanhood could inflict—on women, on faith and on the church—Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ shows us.
What can Beyoncé and Pope Francis teach us about love?
Beyoncé’s ‘Lemonade’ and ‘Amoris Laetitia’ were released a year ago. Both offer an important—often fundamentally different—look into love and marriage.
Books
Confessions of a CIA interrogator
Jerome Donnelly reviews “Debriefing the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein” by John Nixon.
The Rich We Will Always Have With Us
On measures of well-being, residents of the United States fare worse than residents of countries like Canada, Sweden or Japan, all of which are less wealthy but more equal.
A new path for unions in America
In ‘Beyond 15,’ Jonathan Rosenblum scolds Barack Obama for being “more invested in bailing out the financial sector than in expending political capital for workers’ rights.”
Spirituality that makes sense
in ‘The Virgin Eye,’ Robin Daniels shares spiritual wisdom wherever he finds it.
Film
Renowned atheist is hated, murdered, revived in new Netflix film
“The Most Hated Woman in America” indicts Madalyn Murray O’Hair as no better than the corrupt religious leaders that she railed against.
Poetry
To the Ghost
“But give me your silences,/ and I will wear them on my clothes,”
The Word
Go Out to All Nations
It is only within a church as complex and wide-ranging as humanity itself that Christ, still with us, can reveal his face.
The Presence
God-with-us draws us forth to seek out God’s presence over the unknown horizon, to offer Christ’s message to every land, people and nation.
Last Take
What can one black man’s outreach to the Ku Klux Klan teach us about healing?
“Accidental Courtesy” chronicles Davis’ fascination with the K.K.K., from the 1980s through his current work with the Klan, American Nazis and other white supremacists and separatists.
Faith
Go Out to All Nations
It is only within a church as complex and wide-ranging as humanity itself that Christ, still with us, can reveal his face.
The Presence
God-with-us draws us forth to seek out God’s presence over the unknown horizon, to offer Christ’s message to every land, people and nation.
The church doesn’t talk enough about postpartum depression. These Catholic women are changing that.
For Catholic women experiencing postpartum depression and anxiety, faith and faith communities can be a lifeline—but also a potential source of guilt, shame or frustration.
What is the biggest obstacle to forming stable families?
“Once marriage is redefined as a personal instead of a social institution, it makes no sense to stick it out through even moderately bad times.”
Father Greg Boyle: I thought I could “save” gang members. I was wrong.
Me wanting a gang member to have a different life would never be the same as that gang member wanting to have one.
My daughter has a disability. I don’t want Jesus to ‘fix’ her.
On the subject of disability, I found a Jesus that is, frankly, disappointing.
Magazine
The Letters
Conversation. Care. Courage. Presence. This kind of writing feeds my soul. Thank you.
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts