Recently in America magazine Prof Christopher Ruddy wrote a typically discerning and meditative article titled Our Ecumenical Future How the Bishops Can Advance Christian Unity November 8 2010 I was brought along in a spirit of genial agreement with him until the end of the article when

A theological interpretation of recent surveys of youth and religion

Over breakfast Tuesday morning I was reading the newspaper and alighted on a story about an anti-Borat film by a director from Kazakhstan who is out to lampoon the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen s infamous Borat and restore a sense of honor to many Kazakhs that was taken away by Cohen s film Halfway

As part of my family is Jewish I am a Catholic theologian who participates not only in Catholic parish life but who also is a member of a synagogue I have not previously written about this part of my theological life but I thought it might be appropriate here on the America magazine blog to bri

Now catching up on some items of theological interest in the news while I was away for August I could not pass up mentioning this interesting story reported by Scott Sayare in the New York Times a few weeks ago Subject The Madonna of the Bikers festival in Porcaro France Something on the orde

Many readers of America will have visited or at least heard about the Pantheon in Rome I knew little about it on my first visit there several years ago but was overtaken by it the moment it came into view from the street And once I stepped inside the rotunda and saw the Catholic altar amidst a

While reading the New York Times this weekend I could not help but notice that at least five different articles dealt with creating a kind of cultural philosophical or religious permission-giving for taking time away from electronic connectivity in everyday life Is this a noteworthy constell

The Vatican and its defenders can argue that so closely associating women s ordination and sexual abuse does not make them the same But Catholics in secularizing countries many of whom understand that the form of the message is part of its content will be at liberty to be critical -- when they

Last week I was at St Catherine s College Oxford for a research colloquium on the study of religion in everyday life The meeting was one in a multi-part set of colloquia from last fall through this past summer that were organized by Dr Gordon Lynch of the University of London Birkbeck a we

One of the things I ve learned over the last couple years of writing blog posts is how frequently I must pause to ask myself how I as a parent am going to present a certain issue My hesitations are almost always around the ways I will present in word and image matters about women and sexuality