John W. O’Malley, S.J.: The ‘how’ of the church changed during the council.

More words are misused in politics than in any other field of human endeavor Radical has come to mean something like extremist through repeated misapplication but it comes from the Latin radix meaning root radical politics is therefore supposed to be just another term for grass-roots activism Mi

American Catholics old enough to remember Bishop Fulton J Sheen and his famous chalk talks on televisionsermonettes punctuated by occasional salvos against Communism psychoanalysis and birth controlwill be stunned by how much more worldly engaging and hip apologetics can be in the hands of a maes

From our archives, 2003.

Vatican Opposition to War Based on Morality and Political RealitiesThe Vatican’s opposition to a war against Iraq is based on political realism as well as moral arguments, a leading Vatican official said. “From the outside, we may seem like idealists, and we are, but we are also realists

Imagine a dark winter morning. A line of poorly dressed men—black, white, Latino—stretches alongside a 1920’s brick building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The building is the Holy Name Centre, and the men, most of them homeless, are waiting to take showers in the center&rsqu

It is Saturday morning, and I am standing in front of the open refrigerator, surveying the contents, while my mind hurtles into a familiar routine. I had fried fish for lunch yesterday, I reflect, and a sundae after dinner. The conclusion is swift and ruthless. Instead of French toast or a bagel wit

Each day The New York Times, like most newspapers, publishes a television listing that includes a rundown of the day’s movies. But unlike most newspapers, the Times offers its own quirky assessments of these films, with an admirable economy of words.The paper’s reviewers are generous to

Perhaps it was just coincidence that on the very day I was fuming about a syndicated column I had just read by George Weigel, I received a plea from a Catholic woman in Canada. I was going to let Weigel’s defense of pre-emptive war on Iraq pass, but Rose Marie Loria’s letter changed my m