People with disabilities present us with a mystery, Jean Vanier once explained; they are the very presence of Jesus. There is something particular in their kindness.
In Ta-Nehisi Coates’s interpretation of race in America, hope doesn't fit into the narrative—something James Baldwin, to whom he's compared, wouldn't leave out.
'Spotlight' portrays the Globe’s reporters as heroes, but theirs is a workaday heroism without flourishes or frills. 'Truth,' by contrast, is soaked in personality.
The importance of loving care for persons near the end of life is fundamental in Catholic teaching. But we've embraced a version of love without that obligation.
What fascinates Maraniss about Detroit more than its ruin is how central its story is to the broader course of U.S. history—Motown, the local Mob, the auto industry.
John’s gospel is not a story about shepherds and angels. And for that reason, though it's the assigned reading for Mass on Christmas day, most people won't hear it.
'Go Set Watchman' shows that though Atticus Finch defended a black man in court, he was still a man of his time—on the white citizens council, resisting integration.
John Boyne’s new novel pays attention to the circumstances of priestly life in real-world Catholic Ireland, asking: How does one be a good priest under suspicion?
Anahid Nersessian argues that Romanticism dramatizes the “desirability of constraint.” Her book on how British Romantics imagined "utopia" powerfully does the same.
If today the world and the self are devalued, as Walker Percy has suggested, art—particularly the novel— can awaken the reader to their recovery from '4 p.m. blues.'
The church historically has not been kind to the idea of universal salvation. But there have always been theologians who dared to hope that hell would remain empty.
“the quality of mercy” / is a fierce and terrible beauty.../ it hungers in its waiting / then consumes our darkest brokenness / even as it invites us to its table...
Catholic teaching emphasizes the obligation of nations to help the stranger in need. It is neither statesman-like nor Christian to close the door on Syrian refugees.
