What does it mean for a school to be Catholic? “This is a university that’s founded on biblical truth, on scripture, and on the sacramental richness of the Catholic Church,” says Ave Maria University president Jim Towey. But according to Rev. Kevin O’Brien, vice president for ministry and mission at Georgetown University, “What we did 50 years ago to promote our identity does not suffice today because the world is different and our students and faculty are different.” More →

October 25, 2013

“He may be the very guy to come in and reform a lot of the problems that are going on in the Vatican curia right now. And that may be one thing that the cardinals saw that led to his election.” More →

March 15, 2013

“There’s a fundamental misunderstanding that says religion needs to be serious all the time and gloomy and dour,” says Rev. James Martin, S.J., author of Between Heaven and Mirth, who believes humor is good for one’s spiritual health. More →

November 18, 2011

“Once you have empowered a disabled person artistically, you have in fact empowered a disabled person,” says this Georgetown University chaplain who ministers to wounded combat veterans and amputees through the theatre. More →

December 15, 2009

BOOK REVIEW The Grandeur of God and the Life of a Poet by David E. Anderson Father Hopkins said the only true literary critic is Christ. — John Berryman, “Eleven Addresses to the Lord” “If I had not discovered Hopkins, … More →

March 20, 2009

Catholic leaders have often expressed their opposition to certain uses of science, such as anything that threatens human life. But the Church has no objection to basic scientific research itself — from it. That work is honored as trying to understand what God created — in the case of an observatory in Arizona, the entire visible universe. More →

June 3, 2005

In India, in the city of Kalimpong, the poorest children have one place to go to school. It is called the Gandhi Ashram, and it’s run by a Canadian Jesuit priest. Father Thomas McGuire seeks students out, feeds them, teaches them, and gives them confidence — and violins. More →

July 9, 2004

Father Joe Maier is a Catholic priest who, over 30 years, has set up schools that have educated thousands of poor Thai children in the slums of Bangkok. In the process, he has skirmished with all kinds of people from drug dealers to church hierarchy. More →

June 4, 2004