Consuming Life
I write on a hot summer day in Saint Louis. The newspaper notes that Communist China, the great new rising capitalist and consumer society, has made a bid to buy a mid-level American oil company for $1.5 billion more than offered by Chevron. The networks announce that crude oil has reached $60 a bar
From C.E.O. to Mission Leader
The face of leadership in Catholic organizations has changed dramatically in less than a generation. Catholic health care offers a clear illustration. Forty years ago most of the presidents of Catholic hospitals in the United States were Catholic women religious. Today those hospitals are nearly all
Hope at Work
"I am the only male member of my family on either side who hasn’t been in jail,” Mark Ford tells me. “During high school I sold and used drugs, I dropped out, and got kicked out twice.” We were speaking in a row house in Camden, N.J., that serves as office space for Hope
Ministry of Law and Gospel
I used to be a priest, a minister of the Gospel, but I left the priesthood, went to law school and became a lawyer. The other day, as I waited my turn to go before the judge in one of my cases in the criminal courts building here in Houston, I was struck by some…
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Walk, walk, walk says my cardiologist. And I do, mostly just as a way of getting home. But I also enjoy it, though the Manhattan tempo is so accelerated that what might be called walking easily becomes run, run, run. This adrenaline-driven tempo has transformed me into one of the legions of jaywalke
Letters
Letters
Major Source
I commend C. Colt Anderson for acknowledging the action St. Peter Damian took regarding the crime of clerical sexual abuse of children in the 11th century (6/6). The time has come for Catholic scholars to give voice to the hundreds of saints and sinners who have done the same. Peter Damian’s notice to the…
Editorials
The Supreme Court and the Ten Commandments
At the end of its current term, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court issued two judgments and 10 opinions concerning the constitutionality of governmental displays of the Ten Commandments. One judgment upheld the permissibility of the 44-year-old display in the Texas Capitol Park of a six-foot gra
Faith in Focus
Between Newsroom and Sanctuary
The first thing you should know is that I don’t hug trees. I don’t collect money to save whales. I don’t drive a Volvo. I hate tofu. I don’t attend Upper West Side cocktail parties or drink white wine. And I don’t gather in somebody’s basement in the dead of night
The Word
The Pearl of Great Price
If you were approached by God as was Solomon and told ldquo Ask something of me and I will give it to you rdquo how would you respond Would you ask for money A happy family Good health World peace Solomon asked for ldquo an understanding heart to judge your people and to distinguish righ
Sit Down and Eat
It is very convenient to drive up to a metal box place an order turn the corner of the building and pick up a meal in a colorfully decorated bag But indulging our penchant for speed and convenience is often paid for by the loss of human sharing There is something very intimate about eating…
Culture
New and Ancient Beauty
Where do I turn for fresh inspiration? How do I learn from others who practice the spiritual life? Spiritual reading is part of the answer. Great devotional classics encourage me; but I also need contemporary thoughts and insights. New writers (or those who are new to me) keep me reflecting and pray
Faith
The Diaconate of Peace
The ministry of deacons has been intertwined with peacemaking from the church’s very beginning.
News
Signs of the Times
No Insurmountable Problems to Diplomatic Relations With China, Says Vatican A top Vatican official said there were no insurmountable problems to establishing diplomatic relations between the Vatican and China. Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, the Vatican’s equivalent of a foreign minister, said on
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts