On Dec. 7 we commemorate the 40th anniversary of the promulgation of the “Declaration on Religious Liberty” (known also by the opening words of the Latin text, Dignitatis Humanae). No other decree of the Second Vatican Council was so controversial, underwent so many trials and setbacks (

Support Urged for Anti-Torture Provision in Defense Department Appropriations BillU.S. law and policy about torture of prisoners is more about who we are than who they are, an adviser to the U.S. bishops told congressional staffers on Nov. 2. In urging support for an anti-torture amendment to the ap

I had planned to stay a few months, but was pretty quickly hooked and remained for five years - the last five years of Dorothy’s life, as it turned out.

Most families who live at Catholic Worker houses of hospitality or farms recall that Dorothy Day showed some ambivalence toward families in the Catholic Worker movement. Day expected Workers with children to move from urban houses of hospitality to Worker farms, and insisted that donations made to b

Plight of Marginalized Palestinian ChristiansThe permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, made the following statement on Nov. 2 during the 60th session of the General Assembly in respose to the Report of the Commissioner-General of the United Nations

W H Auden - who like T S Eliot was pre-eminent in 20th century English-language poetry - remained at or near the center of Western cultural life from the 1920 rsquo s until his death in the early 1970 rsquo s With his gaze focused unflinchingly on matters great and small during those years A

This is a difficult book to classify It is not history or theology or philosophy nor is it poetry exegesis criticism or hagiography mdash although it includes something of each Perhaps it might be considered a manual for converts a handbook for participants in a parish adult initiation group

If she were a name-dropper Jane Kopas might tell us that she and Pope John XXIII agree about many things She would agree with his opening address at the Second Vatican Council when the pope attentive to reading the signs of the times said that the substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposi

Have you ever returned to a book that you enjoyed as a younger reader? The experience can be enjoyable, disappointing and surprising, all at once. Last month, in a book club at a local Jesuit parish, I reminded the group that our next selection would be Mr. Blue, by Myles Connolly. Mr. Blue! exclaimed one woman. I read that when I was in high school and loved it!

Mark, a Russian journalist, comes every year to the Holy Spirit Study Centre in Hong Kong for an update on the Catholic Church in China. This year he arrived right after the election of Pope Benedict XVI. “What is your opinion?” he asked. “Will Benedict XVI accomplish more than Joh