When I think about the Holy Family I remember other holy families as well, the ones who brought me up in the faith, who showed me how to love and who taught me how to celebrate Christmas.

A few weeks ago, Andrew Sullivan, a senior editor of The New Republic, wrote an impassioned article that appeared in the op-ed section of The New York Times, entitled Losing a Church, Keeping the Faith. In his article, Mr. Sullivan discussed his ardent desire to reconcile his homosexuality with his

With the appointment of Sean Patrick O’Malley, O.F.M.Cap., as archbishop, the city of Boston seemed to breathe a collective sigh of relief. For the new archbishop appears to be the right man for one of the most difficult jobs in the church in the United Statesheading up an archdiocese that Arc

This year the question of which new fall shows to review proves unusually easy. For two new series feature a character familiar to readers of this magazine: God. In CBS’s wonderfully inventive new drama Joan of Arcadia (Friday, 8-9 p.m. ET), the teenage Joan, daughter of the local police chief

Summer is the perfect time to catch up on reading those books you’ve set aside for that eschatological someday. With that in mind, I offer a short list of summer reading suggestions. The four books can be characterized as follows: new and fun, sort of new and very interesting, old and wonderfu

Certainly the biggest story in and on television this year was the war in Iraq. The calculated decision by the Pentagon to embed in the theater of war all manner of journalists (including reporters from MTV and Men’s Health magazine) greatly increased the quantity of news stories filed during

For some years my mother has lamentedand this is not too strong a wordthe fact that I never studied Latin. Whenever she spies a phrase in Latin inscribed on a church facade, or comes across a quote in a book or article, or hears an unfamiliar Latin hymn during a Mass, and I am unable to translate it

One of my earliest religious memories is of learning the Act of Contrition from a Sister of St. Joseph during a C.C.D. class in our parish church in suburban Philadelphia. It was probably a Sunday morning after Mass; I must have been around seven or eight, and was most likely preparing for first hol

Until I entered the Jesuit novitiate at age 28, I had never attended an Easter Vigil.When I was a boy, it seemed to me that every year, at the morning Mass on Easter Sunday, we read the wrong Gospel passage. Usually the story took place a long time after the resurrection. I couldn’t figure out

During the weeks of Lent, America has offered a series of articles by Catholic writers on traditional devotions. This week we conclude our eight-part series with a look at devotion to St. Joseph and to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. As some of our essayists have noted, the theological question of the