During these first eight years of Pope Francis’s time on the Chair of Peter, one theme that has come up again and again is the periphery. Francis made “going to the peripheries” a priority—perhaps even the priority—of his pontificate very...
On March 23, the American public television network PBS aired the premiere of Flannery, a 90-minute documentary movie about the American Catholic novelist, short story writer, and essayist Flannery O’Connor. Flannery was part of the American Masters series of biographical...
Plato, one of the main philosophical influences on Catholic theology, believed in the existence of what are called the “transcendentals.” In Plato’s philosophical system, the transcendentals are “properties co-extensive with being”: abstract concepts around which existence and the material world...
In August of last year, I wrote a reflection on chronic illness, chronic pain, and the way world leaders, including Pope Francis and former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, deal with these afflictions. Since I wrote this reflection, the subject...
Book review of Joe Biden and Catholicism in the United States by Massimo Faggioli. Massimo Faggioli’s new book Joe Biden and Catholicism in the United States, published by Bayard Press on the day of Biden’s inauguration, is the first book-length...
211. In a pluralistic society, dialogue is the best way to realize what ought always to be affirmed and respected apart from any ephemeral consensus. Such dialogue needs to be enriched and illumined by clear thinking, rational arguments, a variety...
“There are ancient limitations from which fairy-stories offer a sort of escape, and old ambitions and desires (touching the very roots of fantasy) to which they offer a kind of satisfaction and consolation. Some are pardonable weaknesses or curiosities: such...
Pope Francis has weighed in on the violence at the US Capitol on Wednesday, January 6. This violence has been condoned or even incited by some of Francis’s critics within the Church, many of whom see loyalty to outgoing President...
There is a picture by the Russian painter Nicholas Roerich called “The Mother of the World.” First executed in 1924 and then painted again in 1937, the image shows a haloed woman enthroned on some sort of mountaintop, wearing a...
The traditional understanding of Christian eschatology is decidedly linear, moving from a defined creation to a defined end of time. While this model of time has more corroboration from the natural sciences today, it is in many ways less intuitive...
When I was almost nine years old, my mother and I moved from Vermont to New Jersey in search of a better school district. I lived full-time in New Jersey until I started college and I continued to go back...
Last year, I wrote on Where Peter Is that Bishop James Conley of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska had taken a leave of absence to receive treatment for depression and anxiety. This is, as far as I know, almost without...
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