What's New
The pope’s visit to Mexico highlights Catholic concern for immigrants and refugees; impact of US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s death on upcoming court cases; and the influx at divinity schools of students who are secular or unaffiliated with any religious group.
“The story of migration is rooted in our history as Catholics,” says Jeanne Atkinson, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network. “It’s everything from the Jewish people’s exile in Exodus to the holy family’s flight to Egypt…This is who we are as American Catholics. We are an immigrant people and an immigrant church.” More
“He was a deep thinker and a great writer, “ observes legal correspondent Tim O’Brien, “and he had an enormous impact on the thinking of his fellow justices…His vote will be lost. For conservatives, that’s a big loss.” More
“In culture today we tend to spend a lot of time thinking about how to succeed in one or the other endeavor that we undertake. But we tend to spend very little time thinking about how we succeed as a human being,” says Professor Miroslav Volf, head of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. More
It was the first official meeting between a pope and a Russian Orthodox patriarch since 1054; a movement of boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel has gained the support of some US churches; an exhibition at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis teaches children about world religions and sacred journeys; Muslim men perform a ritual washing to cleanse hands, arms, face, and feet before they pray. More
“Some say that the patriarch is very close to Putin,” says managing editor Kim Lawton, “and so who knows what kind of Russian geopolitics may also be affected by this meeting” of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis. More
“One of the attractions of this strategy is that we’re not just a relatively small Christian community in the United States taking an action,” says Rev. John Thomas, former president of the United Church of Christ. “We’re joining a much broader movement.” But Rev. John Wimberly, a Presbyterian minister, says US churches supporting the BDS movement “are empowering the most extreme voices and the harshest voices on both sides.” More
“Sometimes I fear that in order to try to teach tolerance we say we’re all alike and we forget to acknowledge our distinctions. And it’s in acknowledging our differences and celebrating those differences that we come to better understand one another,” says Rabbi Sandy Sasso, director of religion, spirituality, and the arts at Butler University and an advisor to the exhibition Sacred Journeys. More
Once staunchly Polish Catholic, this community outside Detroit is now the only US city with a Muslim-majority city council; Kentucky poet and farmer Wendell Berry is passing on his family’s farming legacy in partnership with a small Dominican college. More
“America is the greatest country in the world because of its great Constitution,” says Hamtramck city councilman Saad Almasmari. “I’m an American. My rule is going to be the US Constitution and the state and the city law.” More