Opinion
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May 27, 2013
As I approach the first anniversary of my ordination next month, my friends and family have started to ask about the experience of being a priest: whether the first year was what I expected it to be, whether I’ve learned anything new. To be sure, there have been many moments in which I’ve been surprised by joy, to borrow C. S. Lewis’s phrase.
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May 27, 2013
The Collapse at Rana Plaza
The death toll from the collapse of a garment factory in Bangladesh was still being counted (it would eventually exceed 1,000) when the Walt Disney Company publicized a previously made decision no longer to source “branded merchandise” from Bangladesh and other “highest-risk countries”: Ecuador, Venezuela, Belarus and Pakistan.
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May 27, 2013
For decades, if not centuries, educators have been searching for new ways to bring learning to a mass audience. First radio, then television was seen as an ideal means to educate people who did not otherwise have access to advanced education. Books on tape, public television and “long distance learning” were touted as heralding a new age in public education. The arrival of the Internet was seen as another major step in connecting would-be students to the...
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May 27, 2013
Whenever I find myself in a confusing pastoral situation, I ask myself a question that has, sadly, become something of a punch line: “What would Jesus do?”
Yes, I know the phrase has been almost drained of meaning thanks to overuse, but it still has great value for those who minister in Jesus’ name. And once I ask that question, an answer usually presents itself. Be kind. Be merciful. Be forgiving. Listen carefully. Above all, love.
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May 27, 2013
The United Nations uses it: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” (“Universal Declaration of Human Rights”).
Doctors use it: “A physician shall be dedicated to providing competent medical care, with compassion and respect for human dignity” (“Code of Ethics,” American Medical Association).
Hillary Rodham Clinton also uses it: “Let’s keep fighting for opportunity and dignity...freedom and equality... full...
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May 20, 2013
May is the month in which the church honors Mary; by happy coincidence, it is also the month when secular culture honors mothers. According to the Bible, Mary’s role in salvation history is small but mighty. Through the agency of the Holy Spirit, she conceives the Messiah, gives birth to Jesus and raises him to adulthood. She appears at a few key moments in Christ’s ministry—searching frantically for him and finding him teaching in the temple; urging him to...
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May 20, 2013
How we choose to respond to events of inexplicable violence both reflects and shapes our values. In an interfaith prayer service on April 18, Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, O.F.M.Cap., said of the Boston Marathon bombings: “In the face of the present tragedy, we must ask ourselves: What kind of a community do we want to be?”
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May 20, 2013
The British have a funny relationship with spectacle. On the one hand, they have a deep-seated love of pageantry—a centuries-old belief in the power of public performance to tell their national story. Over the centuries, this constellation of fact, myth and élan has done the job of uniting the otherwise utterly dissimilar peoples of Great Britain. On the other hand, the British capacity for self-mockery knows no bounds; this is the country, after all,...
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May 20, 2013
Shocking Assaults in India
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May 20, 2013
When I first heard the news of the hunger strike at the U.S. detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, my impulse was to tune it out. A few days later The New York Times printed a column on its op-ed page by one of the strikers, and my eyes moved past it to other articles on the page.