Papal infallibility is not always properly understood. Some on the right think that the magisterium can resolve every question or problem with a declaration. Those on the left often grow impatient and dispute its interventions.

Science fiction and religion might not seem like the most natural of bedfellows—but religion is usually a prominent theme in most contemporary sci-fi.

In 1980, Dr. Willis E. McNelly, a pioneer in the academic study of science fiction as a literary genre, offered his thoughts to 'America' on sci-fi and religion.

With the death of Frederick Buechner earlier this month, the nation lost one of its most profound novelists—as well as a spiritual writer of great depth and range.

From 1995: James Martin, S.J., asked a number of the leading figures of American Catholicism to answer a short but complicated question: How can I find God?

In 1995, James Martin, S.J., asked a number of the leading figures of American Catholicism to answer a short but complicated question: How can I find God? In 1997, he returned to the question with a new group of interlocutors.