The Weekly Dispatch
On Óscar Romero’s feast day, El Salvador may have peace from gangs. But at what cost?
President Bukele has used his emergency powers to detain more than 78,000 suspected gang members in security sweeps that human rights groups charge are often arbitrary and violent.
Of Many Things
The right and wrong way to read the new Vatican doc on dignity
If you are not challenged somewhere in your own moral thinking by reading it, then you most likely have not read it thoroughly enough.
Your Take
Is the diaconate the best way for the church to recognize the gifts of women?
In a piece published online in America in March, Katie Owens Mulcahy urged the church to “[recognize] the gifts of diaconal women all around us, inviting spirited debate from readers.
Editorials
Why People Are Rejecting Religion—and How to Draw Them In
If people are not even conscious of a need for religion, the church must also ask how it can help people recognize that the most basic restlessness only finds its rest in God.
Short Take
Mother Cabrini is the patron saint of immigrants. Would her story be possible today?
Mother Cabrini became America’s first saint. But was she herself a legal U.S. immigrant? And would her story be possible today?
Dispatches
Catholic school tuition is a barrier for many families. Can ‘hybrid’ homeschooling help?
Hybrid schools offer greater flexibility, which can allow students to pursue other interests like robotics or nature studies or simply accommodate a teenager’s preferred sleep schedule.
Pope Francis appoints Colombian bishop and U.S. laywoman to lead Vatican office for protection of minors
Bishop Luis Manuel Alí Herrera and Teresa Morris Kettelkamp will lead the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
The Catholic Church in Hungary is deeply politicized—and shrinking
Even as Prime Minister Victor Orban positions his government as one of the last defenders of Christian culture in Europe, religious affiliation in Hungary has dropped to a record low.
Features
Skateparks, gyms and breweries: The right and wrong way to repurpose a closed church building
The Catholic Church, the largest private real estate owner in the world, faces decisions about what to do with its extensive real estate portfolio.
What happens when a diocese takes a synodal approach to parish restructuring?
The institutional church is trying to reimagine parish life and make the best use of its resources by consulting both professionals and people in the pews.
Faith and Reason
Bishop Seitz: Look at the border through the eyes of migrants
Migration is a privileged space in which the salvific mystery is being acted out.
Faith in Focus
Growing Into Motherhood
The joys and challenges of a new child stretched me in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
How to achieve parish unity—with the wisdom of community organizing
Opportunities for authentic encounter were much needed in this parish of separate communities.
Books
Review: Patrick Leahy, Senate stalwart
In ‘The Road Taken,’ Patrick Leahy’s deeply personal new memoir, he writes lovingly about his family, his Catholic faith and his home state but seems focused largely on describing the Washington, D.C., that was—and what it has become.
Review: Flannery O’Connor’s sacramental vision
Jessica Hooten Wilson builds ‘Flannery O’Connor’s ‘Why Do the Heathen Rage?’: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress’ around the previously unpublished manuscript pages of O’Connor’s third novel, which was never finished.
Review: In his latest book, Christian Wiman looks despair in the face
In ‘Zero at the Bone,’ Christian Wiman offers a prismatic series of 50 chapters (52, counting the mystical zeros at the beginning and end) featuring essays, poems, theological reflections, personal reminiscences and literary analyses.
Poetry
Another Doubting Sonnet
I forget—did God make death?
Imitations of Eternity
you discovered heaven spread to the edges of a max lucado picture book
Spring poetry roundup: Mini catechisms in verse
In one way or another, these collections bear the traces of the divine, of the needful Christ.
Last Take
A solution to our epidemic of loneliness
As we grapple with fragmentation, political polarization and rising distrust in institutions, a national embrace of volunteerism could go a long way toward healing what ails us as a society.
Faith
A solution to our epidemic of loneliness
As we grapple with fragmentation, political polarization and rising distrust in institutions, a national embrace of volunteerism could go a long way toward healing what ails us as a society.
Growing Into Motherhood
The joys and challenges of a new child stretched me in ways I couldn’t have imagined.
How to achieve parish unity—with the wisdom of community organizing
Opportunities for authentic encounter were much needed in this parish of separate communities.
Skateparks, gyms and breweries: The right and wrong way to repurpose a closed church building
The Catholic Church, the largest private real estate owner in the world, faces decisions about what to do with its extensive real estate portfolio.
What happens when a diocese takes a synodal approach to parish restructuring?
The institutional church is trying to reimagine parish life and make the best use of its resources by consulting both professionals and people in the pews.
Why People Are Rejecting Religion—and How to Draw Them In
If people are not even conscious of a need for religion, the church must also ask how it can help people recognize that the most basic restlessness only finds its rest in God.
Is the diaconate the best way for the church to recognize the gifts of women?
In a piece published online in America in March, Katie Owens Mulcahy urged the church to “[recognize] the gifts of diaconal women all around us, inviting spirited debate from readers.
Bishop Seitz: Look at the border through the eyes of migrants
Migration is a privileged space in which the salvific mystery is being acted out.
The right and wrong way to read the new Vatican doc on dignity
If you are not challenged somewhere in your own moral thinking by reading it, then you most likely have not read it thoroughly enough.
Pope Francis appoints Colombian bishop and U.S. laywoman to lead Vatican office for protection of minors
Bishop Luis Manuel Alí Herrera and Teresa Morris Kettelkamp will lead the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts