Of Many Things
The tension of Catholic journalism
As local newspapers close and newsrooms shrink around the United States, strong local Catholic journalism is increasingly crucial, and Catholic journalism faces additional challenges.
Your Take
How one diocese is taking steps to support mental health
Readers responded to Bishop Dolan’s article about the mental health ministry he began in his diocese. Many people suffer and are in need of accompaniment, and the ministry is there to provide that aid.
Editorials
A healthy democracy does not fear its leaders.
It is within our capacity to move beyond yet another national nightmare; it is in the best interests of us all to do so.
Short Take
Why a ‘just peace’ in Ukraine will require more than defeating Putin
It is not too early to imagine a ‘just peace’ in Ukraine. But ending the armed conflict is not enough; Russia may need to undertake reparative measures including formal apologies and financial reparations.
Dispatches
Most voters don’t want unlimited abortion. But they don’t trust their states to set restrictions.
Dobbs did not dictate abortion policy at any level, but in overturning Roe after nearly 50 years, the court ruling did restore the right of states to set their own abortion policies.
Catholics in Nigeria are planting trees to combat the effects of climate change
The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria launched a campaign that aims to plant 5.5 million trees over the next five years to mitigate the effects of climate change.
What an Argentinian nun has seen on the frontlines of Ukraine after 18 trips
Sister Lucía Caram, an Argentinian nun living in Spain, has made 18 journeys to the war-torn country over the past 15 months, usually bringing humanitarian aid and returning home with refugees or wounded soldiers.
Features
Walking the path of holiness: What I’ve learned from a lifetime of studying saintly lives
In the anniversary edition of All Saints, Robert Ellsberg reveals his background with the saints and how he was inspired by so many ordinary and extraordinary people.
Latino Catholics are leaving the Church. Can we welcome them back?
Why are Latinos leaving the Catholic Church? And where are they going? In Phoenix, Grace Walk Church has welcomed those searching for a spiritual home away from the Catholic Church
Young LGBT Catholics need to know they belong in the church. I’m creating a curriculum to tell them that.
Our hope is that, by the time a young person begins asking questions about their own sexual orientation, they already trust that there is a place for gay people in the Catholic Church.
Faith and Reason
A crisis in Canada: Medical assistance in dying is not what our most vulnerable people need.
The legalization of euthanasia in Canada—so-called medical assistance in dying, or MAID—challenges our common values and shakes the very foundations of our living together.
Reject the cult of ‘intelligence.’ You’re worth more than that.
Any science that seeks to measure our worth by measuring one trait or another is science gone wrong.
Faith in Focus
My children think tech will let them live forever. Our faith tells us why we shouldn’t try.
Birth and death bookend our temporal experience, but we are called to fill everything between them with love and mercy and decency, not cling to fantasies of a fraudulent eternity.
Nerves, tears and chanting: What I saw during the New York Sisters of Charity vote to stop accepting members
’The air was still. The silence felt like a cloak enfolding the room.‘
I never understood devotion to Mary. Then I had a baby.
My relationship with Mary is complicated. I couldn’t see the appeal of Marian devotion until I had a baby and understood how she embodies the life-giving sacrifice of motherhood.
Ideas
Sex, drugs and God at Burning Man
For someone with the right ears and eyes, Burning Man provides opportunities to become more engaged and more intentional in faith.
Books
Review: The underlying philosophy of Black Lives Matter
Vincent Lloyd’s ‘Black Dignity’ is is a profound challenge to anyone who takes seriously the struggle for human dignity, antiracism and the work of dismantling white supremacy.
Review: A history of books dating back to antiquity
Irene Vallejo’s history of books found an audience outside of the academy because it speaks to present concerns and speaks on behalf of many book readers.
Review: Geetanjali Shree’s new novel is one woman’s surprising reincarnation story
Frank Wynne, chair of this year’s Booker judges, noted that translating ‘Tomb of Sand’ presented “huge challenges” because the novel is about words, language and storytelling, not just characters and plot. Another judge added that it is “safe to say this [novel] is like nothing else you have ever read.”
Mom’s Still In Bed: Mona Simpson on family, fate and mental illness
Mona Simpson’s latest novel unfurls into a stirring cartography of the impacts of a mother’s deteriorating mental health on her three children.
Review: An inner-city Boston parish’s lessons for building a vibrant church community
‘People Get Ready’ tells how an inner-city Boston parish managed to transform itself into a vibrant church community, an experience that Reynolds believes holds lessons for a new understanding of the role of the parish in Catholic ecclesiology.
Review: An LGBT scholar’s memoir on growing up Catholic
In his new memoir, a noted scholar of L.G.B.T. history describes a world of extended family, Catholic schools and parish life that offered a relatively safe space for him to discover himself as a politically progressive gay man.
Poetry
Sappho
that primal howl of grief, guilt, anger, fear at the telegram: “Sylvia died today.”
Lily, Lily, Lily
a golden halo around her black braids, and telepaths faith, faith, faith.
Apology for Belief
I tell my familiars everything but need to scream my head off in a Bible cocoon
Last Take
The synod has taught me: Catholics are not as divided as the skeptics thought
I have learned more about the church than I could ever have imagined, and the synod process has come to seem even more urgent and fruitful.
Faith
The synod has taught me: Catholics are not as divided as the skeptics thought
I have learned more about the church than I could ever have imagined, and the synod process has come to seem even more urgent and fruitful.
A crisis in Canada: Medical assistance in dying is not what our most vulnerable people need.
The legalization of euthanasia in Canada—so-called medical assistance in dying, or MAID—challenges our common values and shakes the very foundations of our living together.
Reject the cult of ‘intelligence.’ You’re worth more than that.
Any science that seeks to measure our worth by measuring one trait or another is science gone wrong.
Walking the path of holiness: What I’ve learned from a lifetime of studying saintly lives
In the anniversary edition of All Saints, Robert Ellsberg reveals his background with the saints and how he was inspired by so many ordinary and extraordinary people.
Latino Catholics are leaving the Church. Can we welcome them back?
Why are Latinos leaving the Catholic Church? And where are they going? In Phoenix, Grace Walk Church has welcomed those searching for a spiritual home away from the Catholic Church
The tension of Catholic journalism
As local newspapers close and newsrooms shrink around the United States, strong local Catholic journalism is increasingly crucial, and Catholic journalism faces additional challenges.
Young LGBT Catholics need to know they belong in the church. I’m creating a curriculum to tell them that.
Our hope is that, by the time a young person begins asking questions about their own sexual orientation, they already trust that there is a place for gay people in the Catholic Church.
What an Argentinian nun has seen on the frontlines of Ukraine after 18 trips
Sister Lucía Caram, an Argentinian nun living in Spain, has made 18 journeys to the war-torn country over the past 15 months, usually bringing humanitarian aid and returning home with refugees or wounded soldiers.
My children think tech will let them live forever. Our faith tells us why we shouldn’t try.
Birth and death bookend our temporal experience, but we are called to fill everything between them with love and mercy and decency, not cling to fantasies of a fraudulent eternity.
Nerves, tears and chanting: What I saw during the New York Sisters of Charity vote to stop accepting members
’The air was still. The silence felt like a cloak enfolding the room.‘
I never understood devotion to Mary. Then I had a baby.
My relationship with Mary is complicated. I couldn’t see the appeal of Marian devotion until I had a baby and understood how she embodies the life-giving sacrifice of motherhood.
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts