My family and my church have been instrumental in helping me to discover that I am part of something a whole lot larger than just me. Being one of many is really who I am at my core.

Walking from the bus station to Viva House, the home of the Baltimore Catholic Worker, I passed block after block of boarded-up homes. I was coming to celebrate Viva House’s 35th anniversary and to visit its co-founders, Willa Bickham and her husband, Brendan Walsh, whom I knew even before I j

Esperanza is Spanish for hope, and one person whose presence has brought hope to Hispanic immigrants in Delaware’s poultry processing plants is Rosa álvarez. A Carmelite Sister of Charity who is herself an immigrant—from Spain, years ago—she is one of the founders of a commu

My friend Sam almost died last week. Given his age, that should not have surprised me, I suppose. What I did not expect, however, was that I nearly lost Sam to nothing more serious than a pair of ministrokes. Even a 63-year-old should have survived this medical problem without too much trouble. Yet

Churches and cathedrals are not merely temples built according to some preconceived pattern to honor the deity, an enterprising designer or a loyal benefactor. They are powerful epiphanies or metaphors of what the church is, how it behaves and what it stands for in the modern world.

"My prayer during the bombing of Baghdad was that I would be ready to die,” said Cathy Breen. “The air in the city was filled with black smoke, both from the bombs themselves and from the oil fires that had been lit.” Cathy, a Catholic Worker who lives at Mary House on Manhattan&rs