Worship at Willow Creek: Lessons from a megachurch
My brother is what we used to call a fallen-away Catholic. After years of searching as an adult, he found a church home that is truly life-giving to him. He now belongs to an evangelical megachurch located in the suburbs of Chicago that is home to more than 24,000 worshipers each weekend. The church
Varieties of Insights: The wisdom of William James
Adam Lord Gifford (1820–87), a philosophic man with considerable wealth, bequeathed to four universities in Scotland an endowment to support work regarding natural theology. For the more than 100 years since that gift, noted thinkers and writers have been drawn to Scotland to share their resea
Truth and Truthiness: What Catholic catechists can learn from Stephen Colbert
Tonight the last episode of ‘The Colbert Report’ will air on Comedy Central. A look back at what Catholic catechists can learn from the satirical late-night host.
A Faith That Works: How method shapes ministry
At my father’s recent funeral, a priest approached me in order to marvel out loud, as he had done before, that he was amazed to discover through conversations with my father that this 80-year-old, lifelong practicing Catholic was such a “liberal.” Nobody in my childhood home would
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
We ally ourselves with the statement, “Standing for the Unborn,” by the U.S. Jesuits.
Letters
Reply All
The Gun Control LobbyRe “Inexcusable Inaction” (Editorial, 12/9): I am deeply touched by the clarity and passion with which the editors have pursued the idiocy of our current gun law impasse. In sympathy with this cause, I have a plan to achieve victory.Right now legislators are reluctan
Editorials
Saving South Sudan
The rebuilding of South Sudan requires an intellectual endeavor to replace the colonial state of mind.
Faith and Reason
How I teach ‘Humanae Vitae’
In many instances I try to teach them how to read and understand “Humanae Vitae” as a real, authoritative document.
Faith in Focus
A Feathered Thing: On the resiliency of hope
Through tragedy and hardship, Robert Maloney discovers the resiliency of hope.
Books
African Journey
If Seamus Heaney digs with his pen Erskine Clarke casts his like an expert fly fisherman In this book By The Rivers of Water chapters end with sharp forebodings of what lurks around the next bend Clarke reels us through the lives of Leighton and Jane Wilson a married missionary couple who leav
No Second City
Thomas Dyja explores the cultural foundations of the ldquo American century rdquo in this engaging fast-paced and original account of mid-century Chicago The city was the breeding ground of American modernity from 1930 to 1960 according to Dyja Chicago was not only the country rsquo s railroad
Missionary Witness
During the middle decades of the 20th century one of the best known Maryknoll priests in the United States was John J Considine who was widely admired for his books lectures and editorial supervision of Maryknoll rsquo s superlative mission magazine The Field Afar In 1963 Maryknoll rsquo s su
Film
‘American’ Made: David Russell’s scam-tastic journey into this bonko nation
John Anderson reviews “American Hustle,” nominated for best picture in the weekend’s Academy Awards.
Poetry
Buffalo: For Mark Conway
They have the storm of the centuryevery winter in Buffalo. Buffalo is like a pilgrim site for snow.Buffalo is Capistrano for blizzards. Think of the word, “snow-bank.”Think of Buffalo as the Federal Reserve. Imagine Lake Erie as your in-lawsand know how Buffalo feels
The Word
Share Your Bread
In the midst of a recent arctic freeze in Minnesota I sent out a tweet ldquo Best part of a polarvortex is ability to be in a warm house and to cozy up and enjoy time with the family Pray for those who are not warm rdquo Someone known on Twitter as RiskyLiberal read my…
Columns
Washington Revisited
What can we learn from the trials and missteps of the founding fathers?
Current Comment
Current Comment
Challenges ahead for parents and regulators as legal recreational marijuana sales begin
Faith
How I teach ‘Humanae Vitae’
In many instances I try to teach them how to read and understand “Humanae Vitae” as a real, authoritative document.
Philosopher's Notebook
Postmodern Catholicism
More than ever, the cross exposes the pretensions of our threadbare metaphysical systems.
Signs Of the Times
Vatican Policy on Abuse Charges Scrutinized by U.N. Committee
Testifying before the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, Vatican representatives acknowledged the horror of sexual abuse by members of the clergy and, under sometimes intense questioning, insisted the Vatican was serious about protecting children.Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican observ
Catholic Bishops Call Gaza Conditions a ‘Shocking Scandal’
Bishops from North America, Europe and Africa called on international leaders to act immediately so people living in the Gaza Strip can have access to basic necessities.“Gaza is a man-made disaster, a shocking scandal, an injustice that cries out to the human community for a resolution,”
News Briefs
A new Web resource at www.sj2014.net, commemorating the restoration of the Society of Jesus in 1814, was launched in January. • New Mexico’s Catholic bishops said they strongly oppose the “authorization of assisted suicide by the state” after a court in Albuquerque ruled on Ja
Turmoil in Michoacan
A Mexican bishop has rebuked the federal government for sending soldiers to seize the weapons of self-defense groups formed to fight off violent drug cartels and criminal gangs in the western state of Michoacán. Bishop Miguel Patino Velázquez of Apatzingán said the strategy was wrong and targeted
A World of Intolerance
A Pew Research Center study issued on Jan. 14 shows another increase in hostility toward religion by most of the world’s 198 nations. The share of countries with a high or very high level of social hostility involving religion reached a six-year peak in 2012, the study said. The number of nati
Vatican Group: Stop Arms to Syria
A Vatican study group is urging world leaders to stop the flow of arms into Syria and to press for an immediate and complete cease-fire there without political preconditions. “Political transformation is needed,” its written statement said, but “it is not a precondition for ending
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts