A Wisconsin judge ruled against the state prison system on Thursday, saying its Covid-19 visitor policy that barred Catholic clergy from meeting with inmates for more than a year violated religious freedom.
Midwest (U.S.)
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Jon Hassler put Catholics’ complicated fear around Vatican II into his novels
Jon Hassler wrote novels that examined with infinite compassion the lives of the residents of small-town Minnesota.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
On the road again: William Least Heat-Moon’s ‘Blue Highways’ turns 40
Forty years after its publication, Jon Sweeney revisits ‘Blue Highways’ and its iconoclastic author.
Posted inArts & Culture, Television
Too many Americans are forgotten or misunderstood. ‘Our Towns’ tries to change that.
“People’s lives are complicated every place you look, and just as complicated as your own life is,” says author and director James Fallows.
Posted inArts & Culture, Features
An American Catholic Pilgrimage
Daniel Hornsby’s debut novel, ‘Via Negativa,’ is the story of a Roman Catholic priest on the road to many destinations, both material and spiritual.
Posted inArts & Culture, Television
Review: ‘City So Real’ explores Chicago, a great American city in need of redemption
For true Chicagoans, theirs is the greatest American city, and also the one most in need of change.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
Cities get our attention, but rural America has many of the same challenges
As rural America becomes more diverse, it faces many of the problems associated with big cities, writes Nathan Beacom. The urban-rural divide in our politics does not reflect reality.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
Farms may depend on water — but they are also polluting it.
In “Laudato Si’,” Pope Francis called drinkable water a human right. But as Nathan Beacom writes, our methods of farming and raising livestock are degrading our soil and polluting our waterways.
Posted inFaith, Interviews
New Chicago Catholic Charities head: Economic crisis from coronavirus will last a decade
Sally Blount will lead the agency during a time of economic turmoil that some economists predict could rival the Great Depression.
Posted inNews, Politics & Society
Care for priests and evangelization discussed during Midwest bishops’ meeting with Pope Francis
In their “ad limina” visit with the pope, the bishops from Ohio and Michigan discussed a wide variety of topics, including the sex abuse crisis and how that impacts the work of priests.