For more than three decades, Mike Davis has offered clear and often stinging counterpoints to the prevailing vision of the “California Dream.”
History
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
Pope Francis says to cherish the elderly. Kane Tanaka, who recently died at age 119, shows us why we should.
“Please cherish the elderly,” Pope Francis says. “Because they are the presence of history.” Kane Tanaka, who died in April at the age of 119, is an example of what Francis is talking about.
Posted inArts & Culture, Theater
Two new Broadway musicals show the pitfalls of turning complex history into song and dance
With “Suffs” and “Paradise Square,” Broadway offers two new musicals that address the great animating subject of the American musical: America itself.
Posted inArts & Culture, Vantage Point
From 1967: New Canons for the Mass
Those of us who have championed the vernacular cause over the years were never so naive (and we said so in print) as to believe that translation would put an end to all problems. In fact, it creates new ones.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Catholics and religious liberty in early American history
If Catholics wanted to be tolerated in the early years of the Maryland Colony, they had to prove their loyalty—first to the Stuarts, then to Parliament, then the House of Hanover and then the fledgling American republic.
Posted inFaith, News
‘America’ mourns the death of editor Drew Christiansen, S.J.
America mourns the loss of Drew Christiansen, S.J., a noted scholar and former editor in chief of the magazine.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Something for everyone: Welcome to Spring Books 2022
America’s spring 2022 literary issue has a little bit of something for everyone—including the historian in each of us.
Posted inArts & Culture, Features
‘We are all responsible together for what the church becomes’: Vatican II, synodality and the future of Catholicism
Kenneth Woodward interviews the Rev. Joseph Komonchak, the renowned scholar of the Second Vatican Council, on the council’s impact yesterday and today.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
‘Talking Back to Dante’: A tribute in verse
Writing in honor of Dante and in conversation with him, Angela O’Donnell recognizes the enormous impact his imagination had on our worldview.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Leonard Feeney said there was no salvation outside the Catholic church. Then he was excommunicated.
One of America’s finest literary talents, Leonard Feeney, S.J., rose to national prominence in the 1940s—but not for his prose or poetry.