In a special issue marking the 40th anniversary of the unification of Jerusalem, America offers several perspectives on the city and its history.

The late John Paul II’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 came as the culmination of the pope’s two- and-a-half decades of religious peacemaking. The personal importance of the visit for John Paul himself was made clear when, following the closing banquet

The vitality of the Catholic Church in China today is a wonder.

From 2007, Drew Christiansen, S.J., on Pope Benedict's unexpected success as a diplomat

One of nature’s ironies is that when it comes to wildflowers, the semi-arid West, even the desert Southwest in springtime, outdoes the green-forested East. I am told the secret is sunlight. The open forests and high meadows of the Sierra Nevada or Colorado’s San Juan Mountains seem to sp

Among the books I would list as must-read but too-little-known is Ronald G. Musto’s The Catholic Peace Tradition (Orbis, 1986; Peace Books, 2002). A history of 2000 years of Catholic peacemaking, it is a vast survey from which I never cease to learn. The sheer accumulation of information gives

We buried Joe Hacala two days short of his 62nd birthday. Joe’s last job was as president of Wheeling Jesuit University. It was a natural fit, because Joe was a native West Virginian, deeply committed to his home state and the poor people of the Appalachian region. Joe and I came together in W

As I rode Amtrak’s Regional from Washington to New York one cold February afternoon, I was reminded that for me one of the delights of train travel is getting the lay of the land. Gazing out the window, I had just noted how one semi-rural settlement lay on the flood plain, and I wondered how f

Jimmy Carter has spent a lifetime teaching Sunday school, a practice that instilled in him a deep attachment to the Holy Land. That bond led him to negotiate the 1978 Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt, the only peace initiative to have had a lasting impact on the shape of the Arab-Israeli

Experts differ as to how the just war tradition should be applied to real-life conflicts. Hard as it may be to believe, some regard it as an academic exercise with no bearing on the real world. For others, it is a calculus for decision makers, with no relevance for others, whether other authorities