Sex. War.
The day after Arnold Schwarzenegger announced to Jay Leno and the world that he was running for governor of Californiatoughest decision since getting a bikini wax in 1978Andrew Sullivan, erstwhile conservative Catholic who supported the war in Iraq and considers leaving the church over gay marriage,
Personal, Private Views: A newly discovered report from 1938 reveals Cardinal Pacelli’s anti-Nazi stance.
Recently The New York Times writer Peter Steinfels offered a considered examination of the dynamic tension between Pope John Paul II’s moral leadership during Operation Iraqi Freedom and the exercise of papal diplomacy. Morally and religiously, the pope could make sweeping public claims for pe
Nourishing the Spirit
The city of Shenzhen, an hour’s train ride from Hong Kong, was until recently a sleepy fishing village. In 1979 Deng Xiaoping designated this hamlet and a vast tract of surrounding territory as a special economic zone. With generous tax incentives in place for foreign investment, the city has
Teaching English as a Second Language
When the bell rings on Monday evenings, the adult students in my class gather their book bags and rush out—eager to end their long day and go home. I shout after them, “Have a good night” and “Get home safely.” They wave back and tell me the same—in English.  
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
A gleaming new, state-of-the-art building in a poor section of the South Bronx? One, moreover, that houses free services for local residents? A rarity indeed, and yet there it was: the Mercy Center (www.mercycenterbronx.org), facing me as I turned onto 145th Street for a late afternoon visit. Two Si
Letters
Letters
Core Reality
Patricia McCann, R.S.M., has provided an excellent, sweeping overview of what has happened to religious life among women religious in the United States since the Second Vatican Council (Catholic Identity, New Age and Women Religious, 7/21). Her knowledge of history is undoubtedly what made possible her judicious synopsis of the decline of religious life,…
Editorials
Catholic Relief Services
Faced with the suffering caused by World War 60 years ago the Catholic bishops of the United States founded the War Relief Services. That organization evolved into Catholic Relief Services, which can now look back on a proud heritage of supporting disaster relief efforts throughout the world during
Faith in Focus
Pay What You Can
When my father passed through the gates of Ellis Island as a boy, the life that awaited him would be new and exciting yet fated with a grinding scarcity. For decades, all Dad had to show for it was hard work, more hard work and very little money. Still, before he knew it, this once…
Books
Agape, First and Foremost
In the introduction to Utilitarianism 1861 John Stuart Mill remarks that ethics unlike science must always revert to first principles If we are to argue coherently in favor of some course of action in personal or social life we must appeal to a basic principle or set of principles justifying
Visionary Women
In this admirably researched study of women rsquo s spirituality in 16th- and 17th-century Spain Stephen Haliczer Distinguished Research Professor of History at Northern Illinois University provides a panoramic yet detailed account of women who constructed their religious identity and authority i
Needed: Personal Piety
Many Catholics today seem content to attend Mass on Sunday send our children to Catholic schools and worship the gods of materialism and secularism for the other 167 hours of the week Matthew Kelly a motivational speaker and unabashed Catholic evangelist is a post-Vatican II Catholic who writes
Film
Ruined Paradise: Northfork
Symbolic landscapes shift during the years. For a century or more, starting perhaps with Mark Twain, American writers have looked to the South as a metaphor for failed expectations and ruinous nostalgia. William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, Flannery O’Connor, Thomas Wolfe, Walker Percy and
The Word
Back to the Present
The future referred to in these readings is not simply the one we want for ourselves. It is God’s future, the one that God wants for us.
Faith
Back to the Present
The future referred to in these readings is not simply the one we want for ourselves. It is God’s future, the one that God wants for us.
The Vatican Concordat With Hitler’s Reich: The Concordat of 1933 was ambiguous in its day and remains so.
Seventy years ago a fateful meeting occurred in Rome. The Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII), and Germany’s vice chancellor, Franz von Papen, formally signed a concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich on July 20, 1933.
News
Signs of the Times
Pope Deplores Bombings in Iraq, Jerusalem, Urges End to ViolencePope John Paul II deplored deadly bombings in Iraq and Jerusalem and urged steps to end the new spiral of violence in the Middle East. The pope spoke at a general audience on Aug. 20, a day after a U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq, wa
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Podcasts