Advent done Christmas time done Lent and Easter and Pentecost too From those momentous events we come into a long period of Ordinary Time The color is green No more long-lived white nor fretful purple just green It is Ordinary Time But what a wonderful color is green of many shades

Although the official America review will not be out for a few weeks I wanted to without treading upon the reviewer s field recommend Ron Hansen s new book Exiles It s a masterfully told novel or fiction based on fact that toggles between the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins

Catholics expect some changes to the words in the liturgy from time to time. But they will soon be using the first Mass texts since the Second Vatican Council that have been created according to a different theory of translation. The revision will have a noticeable effect on the style and sound of t

At a time when baseball fans are dealing with disappointment and disillusionment in the face of the steroid scandals 11 star players from the 1950s and 1960s find a voice in Fay Vincent rsquo s latest venture into oral history Listening to them tell in their own words what it was like to play in

It is a matter of surprise that I have occupied the Laurence J. McGinley Chair in Religion and Society for 20 years. When I reached the statutory retirement age at The Catholic University of America in 1988, I received several academic offers. As a Jesuit, I consulted my provincial superior as to wh

Few industries can boast that they serve the public good and also post a healthy profit. Yet that is what newspapers in the United States succeeded in doing for much of the last century. Flush with advertising dollars and comfortable atop the media food chain, newspapers managed to please both their

The culture of campaign consultants is vile but not only because of the conflicts-of-interest and the greed and the narrow focus on winning over discrete groups of the electorate with particular tailored messages that do little to enlighten on the real problems facing the electorate The problem i

The health care problem no one wants to talk about

The relationship between the art world and the Catholic Church in recent years has been, to say the least, strained. To pick two prominent examples, Andres Serrano’s photograph “Piss Christ” was condemned by Catholic leaders when it was first shown in 1989, as was Chris Ofili&#8217

Preparations for the 10th Annual Service for Families and Friends of Murder Victims last October turned out to be both fatiguing and exhilarating. Members of the Cherish Life Circle, which sponsored the service, know what it is like for mourners to come, some year after year and others for the first