Rafael’s Story: Remembering the stranger we are commanded to love
We met Rafael’s battered body in Capulín, El Salvador, where the dusty road out of the parish of Chirilagua reached its highest and widest point. From there, one can survey the western part of the 200-square-mile parish: the cornfields climbing steep, deforested mountains and mud and stick hu
My Father, Nikita: A conversation with Sergei Khrushchev
Half a century may have mellowed the recollections of many Americans regarding the hottest days of the cold war, but one of the iconic figures of that time remains an intimidating figure in our collective memory: Nikita Khrushchev, remembered as the bellicose premier of the Soviet Union during the d
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
For my grandmother, “The President” was always understood to mean John F. Kennedy.
Letters
Reply All
The Right LanguageRe “A Church for the Poor,” by Bishop Robert W. McElroy (10/21): I am glad to see the phrase “the common good” used. The word “poverty” appears 22 times, the phrase “the common good” 13 times, “the poor” 10 times, “a
Editorials
Good Intelligence
The vast increase in the reach of U.S. intelligence operations lack a stringent moral grounding.
Features
A President for Peace: The deadly consequences of J.F.K.’s attempts at reconciliation
The day President John F. Kennedy was murdered, a Divine Word seminarian walked up the hill to our family’s apartment in Rome to tell my wife Sally and me the terrible news. Seeking wisdom, I wrote Dorothy Day.
Faith in Focus
Next to Godliness: Prayers over the washing machine
‘Slow me down, Lord. Slow me down.’ These words stopped me in my tracks.
Vantage Point
May He Rest in Peace: From December 7, 1963
From the archives, the editors on the assassination of John F. Kennedy
Books
Lamb, Fox, Lion
When speaking against the death penalty to secular audiences I try to work in a plug for the unborn So once as a guest lecturer at Princeton I lamented the passing of Paul Ramsey a Princeton ethicist who demanded that abortion at any gestational stage be distinguishable from infanticide I equa
Man of Letters
ldquo J F Powers 81 Dies Wrote about Priests rdquo So read the stark headline of this great Catholic writer rsquo s obituary in The New York Times in 1999 Powers did write about priests in most of his short stories and both of his novels including his comic masterpiece Morte d rsquo Urban…
A Farewell to Alms?
Charity is a book that gives away with one hand even while it takes back with the other On the one hand the book written by a Scripture scholar who is the Hesburgh Professor of Catholic Theology at the University of Notre Dame underlines the urgency and the prominence of almsgiving in both patri
Film
Dallas, 1963: ‘Parkland’ returns to the scene of the crime.
The most important news photographer of the 20th century was a Russian-Jewish immigrant clothing manufacturer from Dallas, Tex., who almost left his camera home on the day his life went crazy. Abraham Zapruder, whose half-minute film has fueled a half-century of conspiracy theories, recorded a presi
Poetry
A Calvary in Beechhurst
He’s moved his body crossways in the bed.His bony legs are thrust between the bars.His knees are scored with crusted scabs and scars,But time has not effaced his striking head.His urine soaks his undershirt; the sheetBeneath him’s drenched. He will be hard to shift.I roll him on his side
The Word
The True King
The whole nature of kingship can be confusing At least it is confusing to me raised as I was in Canada a democracy that nevertheless retains a monarch as head of state It does not necessarily get clearer in the United States whose founding as an independent nation goes back to the casting off o
Columns
Signal/Noise
We are living in a post-textual world, where words are no longer sufficient.
Current Comment
Current Comment
The editors on the human rights office in El Salvador, changes at the CTSA and lead exposure.
Signs Of the Times
Denouncing Corruption
“Corruption is theft from the poor,” warn the Bishops of the South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference in a pastoral letter released on Oct. 16. Archbishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town said the issue is especially poignant in a region as poor as southern Africa. “Money diver
Vatican Seeks ‘Widespread’ Input On Marriage, Family Life Issues
Bishops around the world are being asked to examine the situation of families under their care.
Pope Francis’ First Cardinals
The pope will create his first cardinals during a consistory on Feb. 22.
Syria: Massacre of Christians In Sadad
The Syrian Christian town of Sadad was taken over by Islamist militias in mid-October, then re-conquered by the Syrian army on Oct. 28. What the army discovered “is the most serious and biggest massacre of Christians in Syria in the past two years and a half,” said Archbishop Selwanos Bo
Mexico: Drug Cartels Battle for Michoacan
‘It’s almost as if we’re in a sort of civil war,” the Rev. Andres Larios, pastor at St. James the Apostle Parish said, somberly assessing the increasing lawlessness which afflicts his community. Some in his village of Coalcomán in Mexico’s western Michoacán State have
News Briefs
Pope Francis is the fourth most powerful person in the world, according to Forbes, which ranks him immediately after the presidents of Russia, the United States and China. • Commissioned by the Irish Association of Catholic Priests, a critical review of the Irish government’s investi
Washington Front
What You Can Do
If cynicism is the sin of our age, then paralysis in Washington is a temptation to despair.
Politics
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Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts