To Follow Jesus
From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus preached a message that was familiar enough so that those who came to hear him could recognize their religious tradition. At the same time, that message was edgy, distinctive enough to make them uncomfortable, even as it stirred their hearts to want God more
You Did It to Me
There once was a prisoner, seen as a threat to the state, who was tortured while being held in prison. The story of his torment, which comes to us in four versions, starts with his arrest and interrogation before officials and ends with his being put to death. But between these events open to the…
Believing in the Miracle of Peace: An Interview with Jim Douglass
From 2007: An Interview with Jim Douglass, a longtime peace activist and author of several books on nonviolence.
From a Colleague Down the Hall: Tribute to Robert F. Drinan
The door of his office is now locked. He used to keep it open all day for passersby to drop in. The worldwide “Map of Human Freedom” is still on it, but otherwise stillness surrounds it. We, his neighbors down the hallway on the fourth floor of Georgetown University Law Center, expect him to burst…
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Walter M. Abbott, S.J., remembers the day in the early 1960’s. He was working in his room above the offices in the old America editors’ residence on West 108th Street in Manhattan, when a call came in from the real estate expert who had been looking for a more suitable building to house
Letters
Letters
Concern for Renewal
Mary Ann Hinsdale, I.H.M., James F. Keenan, S.J., and I are the editors of Church Ethics and Its Organizational Context: Learning From the Sex Abuse Scandal in the Catholic Church (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), the book that Bishop Thomas J. Curry misrepresented and derided in his recent letter to the editor of America…
Editorials
Global Stewardship
In their accounts of the divine creation, the mysterious opening pages of the Bible twice indicate that the work men and women do is neither a penalty nor a curse but an essential human experience toward which these creatures were naturally oriented even before the Fall. In the first chapter of Gene
Books
Nothing Matters Everything Matters’
In his essay Reflections on Gandhi 1949 George Orwell declared Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent By that standard Leonard Woolf 1880-1969 needs to undergo severe scrutiny since Beatrice Webb called him a saint with very considerable intelligence a man wit
A Dark Search
Any reviewer will find his benevolence to an author increased when he finds a distant relative playing even a minor role in the narrative In the Rev Andrew M Greeley rsquo s latest novel Irish Linen I found Tom Linehan serving as the Irish charg eacute d rsquo affaires in Switzerland in 1944
What’s Best for the Social Order?
A wave of recent books has left the distinct impression that the harnessing of religious ideals to political power has ushered in a new Dark Ages in American public life In God and the Welfare State Lew Daly departs from the trend of near-hysterical claims by exploring the religious underpinnings
Television
A Trojan Horse
The sixth season of Fox’s juggernaut television drama 24 debuted recently with a typically nightmarish scenario: random terrorist bombings taking place across the United States, killing more than 900 people in 11 weeks and leaving the rest of the population scared to death. America, we are to
The Word
The Transfiguration of Gods Prophet
nbsp On the Second Sunday of Lent it is customary to read about the transfiguration of Jesus This episode emphasizes by way of anticipation the glorious aspects of the risen Jesus while noting that what awaits Jesus in Jerusalem is suffering and death I want to place today rsquo s readings in th
Columns
Burns, Blessings and Sacred Scars
I put my hand in the oven a few weeks ago and scorched myself on the heating element. In normal times this would have been just another domestic accidenta careless mistake for which my skin paid the penalty. But the times were not normal. I was in a dark space following the breakdown of a…
Current Comment
Current Comment
A Target TongueI am not anti-gun, I’m pro-knife, declared Molly Ivins, extolling the knife’s ability to increase physical fitness: You have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A straight shooter (despite her professed choice of weapons) with accurate aim, Ivins could also writ
Faith
‘Splendidly himself’: The funeral homily for Robert F. Drinan
John Langan, S.J., preached the homily at the funeral of Robert Drinan, S.J., on Feb. 1, 2007. The full text of his homily is below.
News
Signs of the Times
Commuter Bus Bombed in Lebanese Christian AreaTwin bus blasts tore through Lebanon’s Christian heartland Feb. 13, killing three people and wounding dozens more on the eve of the anniversary of former prime minister Rafik Hariri’s assassination. The first blast struck a bus packed with
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts