In ‘Katherine Drexel and the Sisters Who Shared Her Vision,’ the historian Margaret McGuinness has performed another valuable service to American Catholic history.
Catholic Identity
Posted inFaith, Short Take
Cardinal Bernardin’s ‘Consistent Ethic of Life’ still divides Catholics 40 years later
Depressingly, 40 years since Cardinal Bernardin first proposed the consistent ethic of life, the ethic remains mired in the same senseless, polarized partisanship that Bernardin proposed the ethic to overcome.
Posted inArts & Culture, Ideas
Lights, camera, Amen: the love-hate relationship between the Catholic Church and Hollywood
Should a Catholic Church ever be a movie set? From our most iconic movies to some regrettable music videos, it’s a question that has been asked many times and answered in different ways.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s books continue to cast a spell over readers.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s novels ‘Silver Nitrate’ and ‘Mexican Gothic’ feature complicated heroines, compelling plots and supernatural elements solidly grounded in research.
Posted inFaith, Short Take
‘Why do I stay?’ A young Catholic feminist on a church plagued by scandal
The ongoing sexual abuse scandal involving the Rev. Marko Rupnik is another reminder of what the church needs to do to deal with this continuing plague.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Alice McDermott belongs among the great Catholic novelists.
The good news for anyone whose literary tastes have been strongly influenced by the Catholic novels of Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Francois Mauriac, Georges Bernanos and more is this: The new Alice McDermott novel, ‘Absolution,’ has arrived.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Fiction as a business—with a Catholic subtext
‘Big Fiction’ is a book full of cogent analysis, ambitious argument, juicy quotes from insiders and a demonstration of the central role of Catholics in American publishing.
Posted inFaith, Faith and Reason
Memories can be the way we show the dead our love on All Souls’ Day
Many Catholics today fail to appreciate the meaning and moral value of remembrance on All Souls’ Day—though praying for the dead was central to early Christian practice.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
What I learned from listening to non-practicing Catholics ahead of the Synod
Since this synod was announced in 2021, I have worked with the Seattle chancery as a synod volunteer and responded to the call for dialogue by personally talking with 100 people who were baptized and are now non-practicing.
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
Catholic schools in 2023 at a glance
Catholic schools have endured a whipsaw from the Covid-19 pandemic in recent years.