As readers mark the centennial of the Sheed & Ward publishing house, we celebrate what “the Sheedwardians”—as that unlikely Catholic power couple sometimes called themselves—meant back in their heyday.
Books
Posted inPodcasts
Gregory Maguire, ‘Wicked’ author, on the spirituality of paying attention
Long before he wrote “Wicked” Gregory Maguire has been weaving careful attention into his artistic pursuits and his prayer. He joins host James Martin, S.J. on “The Spiritual Life” podcast to talk about his spiritual journey, from a Catholic orphanage and formative education with religious sisters who helped him draw his first picture of God, to his current practice of seeing Jesus’ face on the margins.
Posted inIdeas
Dylan Thomas was a difficult person. But ‘Fern Hill’ is a perfect poem.
To understand this poem, you don’t need biography. Your own personal understanding of the loss of innocence and the pain of mortality serve just as well.
Posted inCatholic Book Club
Catholics speak out on the violence against migrants. Will politicians listen?
Perhaps our politicians do not pay attention to academic conferences; perhaps they do not pay attention to bishops. But it is heartening and a sign of hope that our church still speaks for those who face this violence every day.
Posted inPodcasts
When your son becomes a priest—and you’re not so sure about the Catholic Church
This week on “Jesuitical,” Ashley and guest host Sebastian sit down with Kristen Gilger, author of ‘My Son, The Priest: A Mother’s Crisis of Faith,’ and her son, Patrick Gilger, S.J., to discuss their interwoven journeys of faith.
Posted inBooks
Catholics are both/and people. But we still face stark choices in following Christ.
Catholicism is a both/and religion, true, but that puts before us some strong binaries between having faith in Christ or not, between serving the least of these or not.
Posted inBooks
Review: Kathleen Norris on a sister’s love
Kathleen Norris’s profound new book ‘Rebecca Sue’ is a kind of double memoir of Norris’s sister, who had suffered from severe mental disabilities, as well of the author herself and her family.
Posted inBooks
Review: Christianity against empire
Do you know that hauntingly beautiful moment in a story where the narrator zooms the perspective out just enough for you to see that everything is connected? When the shocking realization dawns that the plot was driven by an unseen force the entire time, our experience of the story itself is altered. Reading Kat Armas’s […]
Posted inBooks
Review: How the suburbs changed the church
Focusing on Long Island, in New York, Stephen Koeth’s ‘Crabgrass Catholicism’ traces the institutional adjustments that occurred as once-urban Catholic families took up suburban living after World War II.
Posted inCatholic Book Club
The legend of ‘The Pope’s Gorilla’: Archbishop Paul Marcinkus
By the late 1970s, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus was considered one of the most powerful figures in the Vatican—and certainly one of its most controversial.