This is shaping up as the season of “kindness.” I’ll cite only three book examples. First, there is On Kindness, by Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $20 hardcover). Phillips is a psychoanalyst who has written 12 other books. Taylor has written acclaime
For our July 20-27 issue the editors of America asked three writers to assess the modern diaconate. William T. Ditewig, who for five years directed the U.S. bishops' office on deacons, takes a look at the unique ministry of the deacon in
In his new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth), Pope Benedict XVI makes a persuasive case that the current global financial crisis is about more than economics; it is also about ethics. As such, he provides us with a moral framework for moving forward as one human family
Just as the permanent diaconate is not only for celibates, neither is it a “married ministry,” though currently most deacons are married. Rather, the permanent diaconate is a major order of ecclesial ministry open to married and to unmarried men.
War can never be understood as a rational exercise, for sin is by definition irrational.