A Quiet Change of Course
Look into any book about the history of racial integration in the United States, and you will almost certainly find dramatic stories about bus boycotts and Rosa Parks; Freedom Riders, voter registration and Emmett Till; Selma, Birmingham, Montgomery; and the civil rights movement and Martin Luther K
Tarnished Good Guys
“What kind of judgment is one based on scraps of paper copied three times? We do not want such judgments.” So said Cardinal Josef Glemp to the crowd that filled Warsaw Cathedral after Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus announced his resignation on Jan. 6, moments before the celebration of his instal
The Law and Chastity
Not so long ago, chastity, the virtue that single people practice by abstaining from sex and married people by being faithful to their spouses, was regarded as a mainstream value. Even people who failed to live up to it generally recognized it as normal and normative. Today, however, the mainstream status of chastity is attenuated,…
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
It is not easy to get published in America. In fact, for every piece we print, three or four are rejected. Before being accepted for publication, every manuscript is screened, many by three or four associate editors, followed by the editor in chief. Sometimes even that is followed by a conversation with the editorial staff…
Letters
Letters
Limited Report
Too bad you limited to one page your report on the Vatican’s notification on the works of your fellow Jesuit, Jon Sobrino (Signs of the Times, 3/26). My diocesan newspaper, not in your league by any means, nevertheless gave us a more complete report, which allowed us to see the deft and graceful handling…
Editorials
Loyalty or Accountability?
The reaction of Robert Gates, the new secretary of defense, to the failure to provide appropriate medical care to wounded veterans offers a striking contrast to the reaction of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to reports that eight United States attorneys had been fired for partisan political reaso
Books
Together at Last?
This book is the companion to the Discovery Channel rsquo s program ldquo The Lost Tomb of Jesus rdquo A well-written interesting often titillating account of the 1980 discovery of inscribed ossuaries from a tomb in Talpiot a suburb south of Jerusalem it reveals the names of various first-cen
Prophetic Messages
For years I have stared at the five published volumes over 2 100 pages of Thomas Merton rsquo s letters arranged neatly on a shelf in my Merton collection and wondered if I would ever have time to work through them Occasionally I opened a volume to check a reference but the massive collection of
Film
A Complicated Truth: Beyond the Gates
One need not be one of those bloated bloviators of talk radio to rush to the judgment that political correctness and ethnic sensitivity can be carried to comic, even tragic, extremes at times. Philip Roth, an author of solid liberal credentials, explored the dark side of planet P.C. in his splendid
The Word
Why Christianity Succeeded
Why did the early Christian movement succeed Why has it lasted for almost 2 000 years The most basic reason is the resurrection of Jesus Early Christians believed that God was at work in a definitive way in the life death and resurrection of Jesus They believed that through Jesus it had become
Columns
After Life
Under the influence of St. Thomas Aquinas, I hold that a soul is a unifying formative source of any living being’s activities and purpose. Thus each individual plant or tree has a soul, a formative cause of its integrated development in its life-activities of growth, healing and reproduction.
Culture
Attuned to Gods Silence
The contemporary poet Franz Wright expresses a sense of human life as a brief hiatus between an immense before and after. The cold and dark was Wright’s environment for decades of his life, starting from age eight, when divorce took his much-admired father, the poet James Wright, out of the ho
Current Comment
Current Comment
A Star PhilosopherWith the announcement that the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor will be soon be honored for his investigations in human spirituality, another star has been added to the firmament of Templeton Prize winners. Taylor is an exceptional philosopher, a practicing Catholic much influen
Magazine
Of Many Things
It is not easy to get published in America. In fact, for every piece we print, three or four are rejected. Before being accepted for publication, every manuscript is screened, many by three or four associate editors, followed by the editor in chief. Sometimes even that is followed by a conversation with the editorial staff…
News
Signs of the Times
U.S. Peace Activists Visit Vatican On the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq, three U.S. Catholic peace activists paid a discreet but significant visit to the Vatican. The officers of the Indiana-based Catholic Peace Fellowship were in Rome in mid-March to promote the issue of conscientious objec
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts