Oppressors for Justice
As I get older, I continue to discover that many of the beliefs I cherished as a child were not really truths. They were, rather, proverbs my Irish mother used to say to encourage her daughters to behave appropriately. Because of a letter I received during the past Easter season, I was reminded of t
Diet for a Small Planet? Fat Chance
As I was hurrying through a popular bookstore during the winter holiday rush, my attention was caught by the cover of a prominently displayed book, Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet. The work is a sequel to Frances Moore Lappe’s appeal to Americans in the early 1970’s t
Politics and the Parish
When we think about politics and the parish, we generally think about policy advocacy – for example, the pre-election-year statements of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, like Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility(October 2003), or letter-writing campaigns conducte
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
I have poor circulation, and that makes my ankles swell,” said the woman in front of me, speaking in the soft accents of “the islands.” A heavy-set person in her 50’s, she explained this as we sat on our bags early one morning at the Port Authority bus terminal in New York Ci
Letters
Letters
Stark Reality
Thank you for printing the picture with the caption Mother feeds malnourished child in Signs of the Times on July 5. I simply stopped and stared, disturbed and saddened. Having breast-fed all three of my children, I want to cry with and for the mother in the picture, knowing she is not providing the…
Editorials
Refugees: Darfur and Beyond
The disaster unfolding in the Darfur region of Sudan shines a spotlight once again on the plight of refugees and internally displaced persons. The Sudanese government has stood by as Arab Janjaweed militias engaged in the systematic destruction of Darfurian villages and water sources. Thirty thousan
Faith in Focus
Lourdes Diary: Seven days at Massabieille: Part Two
‘Even before dawn, there is a Mass being celebrated, and pilgrims are already here, kneeling before the space, running their hands over the rock, praying the Rosary and hoping for healing, as they have been doing since 1858.’
Books
From Punch Ball to Hardball
In this richly documented and thoroughly engaging memoir Joseph A Califano Jr recalls his years in Washington as a member of several administrations and as a partner in a powerful law firm From this vantage point Califano observed and participated in the national crises and unsettling cultural c
The First Families
One might approach this book as a field guide to the multiple species of church or early Christian assembly to be found in the New Testament The text remains rooted in the world of first-century Christianity The Rev Raymond Collins professor of New Testament at The Catholic University of America
Amorous Concerns
With these two books of translated sonnets one under its own label and one through a subsidiary Farrar Straus and Giroux tightens its claim to a place on the top rung of literary publishers The sonnet is about as much in vogue these days as the gavotte but we have to admire the great practition
Poetry
Resistance Fantasies
We like to think we would have been
The Word
All God’s People
People of every religious faith should be able to recognize God’s goodness in the way we live our lives and interact with them.
Blowhards
If you want to make it in the world today you have to advertise If you have a product to sell or a service to offer you must make it known mdash and you must brag about it ldquo We have what no one else has rdquo ldquo Ours is bigger and better and lasts…
Faith
My Conscience, My Vote
I was raised a Catholic. I know in my bones that I would not hold the views I hold today if it were not for the values I learned in Catholic school. I am, I think it is fair to say, a Midwestern, populist progressive in the tradition of Robert LaFollette, George Norris and Theodore…
All God’s People
People of every religious faith should be able to recognize God’s goodness in the way we live our lives and interact with them.
Blowhards
If you want to make it in the world today you have to advertise If you have a product to sell or a service to offer you must make it known mdash and you must brag about it ldquo We have what no one else has rdquo ldquo Ours is bigger and better and lasts…
Lourdes Diary: Seven days at Massabieille: Part Two
‘Even before dawn, there is a Mass being celebrated, and pilgrims are already here, kneeling before the space, running their hands over the rock, praying the Rosary and hoping for healing, as they have been doing since 1858.’
News
Signs of the Times
Battle of Sexes Not Part of God’s DesignThe battle of the sexes and, particularly, the subjugation of women are the result of original sin and not of God’s original design for creation, said a document released by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Attempts to advance the ca
Opinion
My Conscience, My Vote
I was raised a Catholic. I know in my bones that I would not hold the views I hold today if it were not for the values I learned in Catholic school. I am, I think it is fair to say, a Midwestern, populist progressive in the tradition of Robert LaFollette, George Norris and Theodore…
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts