Brainism
I received a thoughtful e-mail message recently from a late 1980’s graduate of a Jesuit university. He is strongly pro-life, armed with 27 hours of philosophy and theology requirements to boot, and is at loggerheads with some pro-choice friends who hold the position that there is a distinction
Bush, Torture and Lincoln’s Legacy
Being the only superpower means never having to say you’re sorry. In the year since the first photos of humiliation and torture at Abu Ghraib prison were leaked, there has been a flurry of Pentagon studies, jump-started criminal investigations and disturbing new revelations in the media. Yet p
Cautious Optimism
Many times in recent months, friends have asked me, “Are you optimistic over the situation in the Holy Land?” In true Jesuit fashion, my response has been, “Yes and no.” Responding to “facts on the ground,” I find surges of optimism are followed by waves of pessim
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
In 2001, Col. Pat Lang, a Knight of the Holy Sepulcher, a leading Middle East intelligence analyst and now a well-known television commentator, called together a small group to develop a program for the Knights to support grass-roots peacemaking between Israelis and Palestinians. Among the participa
Letters
Letters
Ignatian Perspective
The article A Veteran Remembers, by James R. Conroy, S.J., (8/1) offers an excellent perspective on the war in Iraq. By calling attention to the disproportionately large number of African-Americans and Hispanics who are serving and dying there, he asks us all to consider whether or not this really is our nation’s war. In…
Editorials
A Time for Peace
In the final week of July 2005, a month darkened by terrorist violence in London, the Irish Republican Army officially declared an end to its armed campaign to eliminate British rule in Northern Ireland. The time had come, the I.R.A. statement said, to pursue a political and democratic path to a uni
Books
One Writer’s Life
Eudora Welty closed her best-selling autobiography One Writer rsquo s Beginnings with the words As you have seen I am a writer who came of a sheltered life A sheltered life can be a daring one as well For all serious daring comes from within Originally opposed to the idea of a biography towar
Defying Devotional Debasement
One of the most enduring images I have of my visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City in 1999 is the proliferation of religious goods booths selling every conceivable souvenir or item of devotion which one must pass in order to reach the shrine itself I remember being troubled
Film
Kingdom of Hospitality: Kingdom of Heaven
To qualify as a Hollywood blockbuster, historical epics have to have several things: an anachronistically modern hero, a ruthless villain, a contrived love story, cataclysmic battle scenes and, of course, beheadings. But historical epics also have to have something else: a Big Idea, typically an idi
The Word
Servant of the People of God
Today’s readings indicate that the religious leader is appointed by God and is accountable to God. They take their positions and responsibilities seriously, because the people of God deserve the best that they have to offer.
The Price of Fidelity
Nobody wants to suffer Every living being cringes from pain It is almost as if we have within us a driving force to run away from it And then we come across readings like today rsquo s that admonish us ldquo to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice rdquo They seem to call us…
Culture
Liberated by the Papacy?
In August 1917 Pope Benedict XV proposed terms of peace to the nations engaged in the First World War. Though so close in content and formulation to Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points of January 1918 that Benedict’s most recent biographer, John F. Pollard, charges the Calvinist and notorio
Faith
Servant of the People of God
Today’s readings indicate that the religious leader is appointed by God and is accountable to God. They take their positions and responsibilities seriously, because the people of God deserve the best that they have to offer.
News
Signs of the Times
Pope Benedict XVI Addresses Communion by Divorced and RemarriedDuring a meeting on July 25 with about 140 priests, religious and deacons from the Valle d’Aosta region of Italy, where he was vacationing, Pope Benedict XVI engaged in a wide-ranging discourse. Divorced and civilly remarried Catho
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts