Readers weight in on the debate started by Albert B. Hakim on universal salvation and damnation for the unjust, and fact-check our review of 'Spotlight.'
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.
'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.
By focusing on cultural and institutional microcosms, a documentary paints a picture of an entire society whose various activities are all embedded with chaplains.
Readers write in about Catholics breeding like rabbits, writers using "man" to refer to "humanity," the political tsunami in Scotland, and Jewish women cutting hair.
The Vatican killed all interest in World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, but Francis let that go to outflank various groups that oppose his other initiatives
Frank Bruni challenges elitist assumptions about what "counts" as a worthy education, and Fareed Zakaria defends the usefulness and versatility of the liberal arts.
Chen Guangcheng's condemnation of the Chinese state is told through his story of legal activism, resulting torture, trial, house arrest, and an escape to the U.S.
Claudia Rankine’s 'Citizen' and Jeffery Renard Allen’s 'Song of the Shank' both take up the issue of race in America in jagged and beautiful poetry and prose.
A preview of upcoming papal visits at home, abroad and with Italian protestants. And the press turns Francis's list of "attacks on life" into an abortion debate.
The pattern of income inequality is more than a social problem, Robert Putnam says; it's a social tragedy, most devastating in the lives of poor American children.
Many modern American thinkers have asked, often and with anxiety, "What is man?" In his latest book, Mark Greif thinks we've outgrown this—and it's a good thing.
These idle moments when we used to be alone with our thoughts are being decimated by devices. A casual but crucial meditative dimension in our lives is disappearing.
Cardinal Parolin calls Ireland's gay marriage victory a "defeat for humanity"; progressives and traditionalists hold secret meetings to discuss Synod on the Family.
Oscar Romero will be declared a martyr, Francis tells bishops to stop "trying to tell Catholics what to do all the time," and cardinals deny the pope has enemies.
Andrew Cockburn's 'Kill Chain' examines the disastrous political effects of the U.S. military's targeted assassination practices--and the true motives behind them.
Unlike past Eurocentric taxonomies of world religions, the latest Norton anthology aims to let six major, living, international religions speak...in their own words.
From "Mad Men"'s central narrative vision—a conjuring of 1960s advertisers at work and play—some plotlines meandered this way and that, only to hit a dead end.
Iranian author Azar Nafiri defends the value of canonical American literature—its imagination and humanity—against Common Core, market analyses, and Babbitt.
At the 126-year old Catholic Church in Freddie Gray's neighborhood, where structural sin can be fatal, parishioners find ways to work for justice, not just charity.
The award-winning author of the story collection 'Night at the Fiestas' talks about her influences, the importance of empathy in fiction, and washing altar cloths.
Tight-lipped officials reveal details of Jubilee year. Serra's canonization is almost complete. And for the first time, a woman bishop visits the Apostolic Palace.
Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell each has its own floor. Evoking horror, repentance and beatitude, more than 40 African artists exhibit a new look at Dante and divinity.
Is humanity better or worse off believing in the sacred? Kitcher has not provided new reasons for declaring the death of God, but he certainly makes it seem foolish.
Controversy over the canonization of California's founding father continues; Bishop Finn is finally gone; and Pope Francis will make visit to U.S. Seminary in Rome.
Mailer, Trilling, Macdonald, Kazin, Maxwell, Bellow, Auden, O'Hara—men with public moral concerns, who seized power to shape American literature. But who were they?
