Magazine

Two summers ago I passed through the entrance gate to the camp at Auschwitz in Poland and read the chilling phrase, “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Makes You Free). I wandered the now still streets of that concentration camp viewing the scuffed, unclaimed luggage, some marked with its owner&rs

Growing up Catholic in the 1950’s, my first understanding of the term mission centered around pagan babies, milk-carton penny collections and stories of religious in full habit harvesting souls abroad. Only later did I discover that the term included Home Missions in the United States.These mi

Churches and cathedrals are not merely temples built according to some preconceived pattern to honor the deity, an enterprising designer or a loyal benefactor. They are powerful epiphanies or metaphors of what the church is, how it behaves and what it stands for in the modern world.

Comes another autumn and nature’s reminder that life is most authentically itself because of its impermanence. The cycle is indisputably natural, and yet much of it is tinged with irony, especially here in northern climes. Trees lose their covering just when they seem to need it most, the loons

"My prayer during the bombing of Baghdad was that I would be ready to die,” said Cathy Breen. “The air in the city was filled with black smoke, both from the bombs themselves and from the oil fires that had been lit.” Cathy, a Catholic Worker who lives at Mary House on Manhattan&rs

Catholics and Politics

Msgr. Thomas J. Shelley, in his article Vatican II and American Politics (10/13), evokes a most interesting interlude in American history involving the candidacy of Al Smith. If many Americans wondered whether Catholics would impose an official religion if

This book, Christ in the Margins, took shape on a red plastic tablecloth in a diner in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is where I met the artist Robert Lentz. The two of us spent hours sharing ideas to bring his vision to reality. Perhaps as we sat together, eyes shining, words tumbling, arms gesticul