In his interestingly wrong-headed essay, Paul Miller argues that there are extraterritorial evils so great that they oblige the United States to intervene militarily to preempt them when they threaten, to put a stop to them when they’ve already begun, and to

For several days I’ve watched a robin beat Herself repeatedly against a window. An oracle. A bird-sign that augurers Once understood. It breaks my heart to see Her wanting some illusion in the glass As much as I want things I cannot have: Assurance that my

As mediated by the journalists, the story of the Second Vatican Council was framed as a battle between traditionalists centered in the Roman Curia, the Vatican’s bureaucracy, and a core of progressive bishops, mostly from northern Europe. It was a facile poli

Lilacs, pummeled in pounding rain, their sweetness sweeter for the pain, release redemptive suffering scent as they are pummeled, broken, bent.

When Yale first bowed to the spirit of meritocracy and began admitting large numbers of students from outside the New England upper class, it set in motion a nationwide arms race among high-achieving high school students. After fifty years of escalating compe

Among the pipes and pulleys, sacks and seeds, there is a necklace made of crimson beads. Great care was taken that it catch the eye of plain-clad fernandinas passing by the Sunday market stalls and sundry shops where needs and wants diverge. A woman stops. S

A half century ago, John Courtney Murray’s response to Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem in Terris raised issues that, as Paul Miller’s essay makes plain, remain at the center of the foreign-policy debate. The pope’s “acute sense of the basic need of the new

Believing in the Eucharist, My faith affirmed within the Host, I welcome—with an upturned wrist, Believing in the Eucharist— These elements, to take amidst The Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Believing in the Eucharist, My faith affirmed within the Host.

Paul Miller’s essay is a plea for Americans to persevere in a military undertaking in Afghanistan that began in 2001. I might be moved by an argument that appealed to our national honor. Many people in that country have risked much, personally, to cooperate w

Alyssa Rosenberg argues on Slate that Romeo and Juliet “is full of terrible, deeply childish ideas about love.” She’s quite right . . . because that’s the point of the play. Reading the text, instead of assuming it represents the genre “perfect love that is t

While reasonable people can and do disagree about immigration, the stance of the congressional GOP on guest workers indicates that many Republican leaders have chosen to learn the wrong lessons from the most recent election. Let’s start with some facts abo

I met Aaron Kheriaty, M.D., while working on a wire service story about the Psychiatry and Spirituality Forum at the University of California, Irvine, which he directs in addition to serving as director of residency training and medical education in the depar

If the conclave of 2005 was about continuity—extending the legacy of John Paul II by electing his closest theological advisor as his successor—the conclave of 2013 was about governance. The College of Cardinals came to Rome convinced that the incapacities

George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, as has often been pointed out, imagined two very different dystopias. In 1984, written just after the Second World War, Orwell depicts the forces that held people captive as fundamentally external: coercion, espionage, laws, c

Last Tuesday’s March for Marriage contained many of the standard elements for a socially conservative protest march. There were young families pushing strollers, some Catholic parishes that rented buses, youthful nuns praying. In short, it was easy to view as

Michael Voris’ “FBI (Faith Based Investigation) into Homosexuality,” a 94-minute video he recently released on his website ChurchMilitant.tv, was not easy for me to watch. It is harder for me to review. I’m tempted to rip into its bloody meat and leave behind

She was called a “messenger of the love of Christ,” awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and beatified by the Holy See. But for most people, she is simply Mother Teresa, one of the most admired women of modern times. Born as Agnes Bojaxhiu in Macedonia in 1910,

Stopping by my local Barnes & Noble store several years ago, I counted ninety-two Amish romance novels. My local Christian bookstore had sixty-six. More formal research for my book about Amish romance fiction confirmed what my bookstore visits first sugge

Benedict knelt in prayer before the Shroud of Turin, then spoke on the mystery of Holy Saturday, of which he saw the Shroud to be an icon. The meaning of Holy Saturday is perhaps especially dear to Benedict—between having been born and baptized on Holy Saturda