JUST IN: America Media received a record 48 awards at the 2018 Catholic Press Association Awards. Click here to see all of our award winners.
Voices
Judith Valente, Chicago Correspondent

Judith Valente, a regular contributor to NPR and "Religion and Ethics Newsweekly," is a journalist, poet and essayist. She is the author of Atchison Blue: A Search for Silence, a Spiritual Home and a Living Faith, named best spirituality book in paperback for 2014 by the Catholic Press

@JudithValente
Articles By Judith Valente
Image: iStock
Arts & Culture Books
A theologian targeted by the Vatican defends religious pluralism
Judith ValenteOctober 25, 2017
"The church as a whole, cannot grasp the vastness of God," Peter Phan argues.
Arts & Culture Poetry
Chicago Remembers Gwendolyn Brooks, the first African-American to win a Pulitzer
Judith ValenteJune 26, 2017
Gwendolyn Brooks' poetry presented readers with a look into the life of African-Americans.
Activists with the March to Springfield hold a protest and rally outside the governor's office at the Capitol in Springfield, Ill. Tuesday, May 30, 2017. (Rich Saal/The State Journal-Register via AP)
Politics & Society Dispatches
Forget Washington. For budget dysfunction, look to Illinois.
Judith ValenteJune 06, 2017
The Illinois General Assembly ended its regular session on May 31 without passing a budget for the third year in a row. The length of the legislative stalemate is unprecedented.
Politics & Society Dispatches
Chicago Catholic high school students among those with stolen photos shared online
Judith ValenteMay 19, 2017
Illinois is one of about 35 states that have “revenge laws” that prohibit anyone from publicly disseminating intimate or embarrassing content about others without their consent.
Arts & Culture Dispatches
Meet the women building a community of Christian writers
Judith ValenteMay 18, 2017
The women of the Redbird Writers Guild shared a common belief that writing with faithful trust can lead to transformation—their own and ultimately that of their readers.
Lowell Thompson
Politics & Society Dispatches
Can a coloring book help heal Chicago’s racial divide?
Judith ValenteMay 05, 2017
Mr. Thompson, one of the first African-Americans hired by a major Chicago advertising agency, is on a crusade to convince people of all races that this is not a black or white matter. Human beings represent a range of color.
Edward Lally (center) is joined by his schola, Sarah Coffman, Katherine Keberlein, Ngaire Bull and Sarah Beatty, at St. Edward's Catholic Church in Chicago on April 8, 2017. Photo courtesy of Sarah Beatty.
Faith Dispatches
For one Chicago parish, Gregorian Chant resonates
Judith ValenteApril 25, 2017
With chant “you’re expressing something in pure melody."
Politics & Society Dispatches
When sexual assault goes viral
Judith ValenteMarch 31, 2017
What motivates assailants to brazenly post their crimes to Facebook?
In this May 30, 2016 file photo, police work the scene where a man was fatally shot in the chest in Chicago (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune via AP).
Politics & Society Dispatches
Outgoing Chicago U.S. attorney bemoans gun violence, urges reform
Judith ValenteMarch 18, 2017
In a five page “open letter,” Zachary Fardon traced problems in the city’s most troubled neighborhoods to neglect “rooted in ugly truths about power politics, race and racism.
Carmen Severino, an abuse survivor, is embraced during a news conference that heralded the release of thousands of documents from the Chicago Archdiocese on past cases of clergy sexual abuse in January 2014. (CNS photo/Jim Young, Reuters)
Faith Dispatches
Priests should not review abuse claims, says former commission chair
Judith ValenteMarch 09, 2017
Ms. Collins’ complaints “mirror” concerns she and other members of the National Review Board raised in the early years of the abuse scandal. “The whole thing spoke to me of ‘nothing’s changed.’”