To write a biography of Avery Dulles is to enter the vitriolic conflict over interpretations of the legacy of Vatican II, the current state and future prospects of Catholicism in the United States, and the health of Catholic theology. There is much to be said for Carey’s way of organizing the myriad events and scholarly works in the life of a very public intellectual. Yet it finally fails to capture the complexity of the figure that emerges in the pages of this book.

William Stringfellow is one of the most intriguing modern American theologians, but you’re not alone if you haven’t heard of him. Rowan Williams, Stanley Hauerwas, and Daniel Berrigan have all been influenced by his work, yet since his death in 1985, Stringfellow’s legacy has been sorely under-appreciated and his writings far too little sought after.

A Tribute to Gregory Baum

Peacebuilding is the fruit of the Catholic Peacebuilding Network, an affiliation of scholars, practitioners, and institutions. It is concrete, pastoral, conceptually challenging, and provides many practical suggestions.

A somber conclusion arises from our common experience of life: there exist powers, at work in and through humans yet commanding a superhuman blind energy, that labor for the destruction of humans and of all human beauty and grace. Such powers cannot adequately be named by the language of social description; they require the language of myth. It is important to be able to speak of the Devil.

Finding good resources for adult faith formation isn't easy. For years, the field has been wide open for someone who could combine actual substantive content with an engaging yet adult-worthy teaching style. Into this breach comes Catholicism.

How persuasively is the church making its case against gay marriage?

The trouble with the new Roman Missal

The liturgical wars heat up

The bishops & Elizabeth Johnson

How not to write about the cardinal & his time

To attribute sympathy or “solidarity” to God is to make him seem less involved with us than, as Creator, he must be.

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan on 60 Minutes

Last month, the USCCB issued a statement claiming Elizabeth A. Johnson's latest book “contaminates the traditional Catholic understanding of God.” Regrettably, the bishops' statement reflects, among other problems, a theological failure to take evolution seriously.

If George Weigel had lived in nineteenth-century France, he would have been termed an ultramontane—one who looked beyond the Alps to Rome. Instead, he looks from Washington to Rome.

The latest demonic possession movie, The Rite, is The Exorcist for sissies.

It was in Rome during the heady days of Vatican II. There was to be a meeting of the Consilium, the commission for the reform of the liturgy, where the subject of deaconesses was raised—and not one woman was in the room.

If we forget the Bible, in what sense are we Christian?

 ‘Three Faiths’ at New York’s Public Library

My mother said, “Why didn’t they tell us these things in school?” I had just come into her room. “Like what?” I said. My mother is in an assisted-living facility run by our church. “Well,” she said. “Did you know that after the Blessed Mother gave birth to Jesus, she went into the desert, to a place God had prepared for her? She was there for twelve hundred and sixty days. It’s in the Bible. Did you ever learn that in school?”

Could the vogue for Herbert McCabe portend a renaissance of liberation theology and the revolutionary spirit of the ’60s? His admirers have not linked his Catholic faith and his socialist politics, and McCabe himself denied an intrinsic connection. Still, there exists a bond between his theology and his radicalism, a bond particularly worth examining today. 

Way back in the twentieth century, when I decided to pursue doctoral work in theology, I never imagined that I would one day teach in an Oxford college. Neither did I imagine that John Henry Newman, of all people, would come to loom large in my day-to-day life.

Who is Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet?

When bishops speak about health-care policy, Catholics don't have to agree

Might the USCCB be wrong about the health-care law?

Extending the argument against sex-selective abortion

In his new book The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, Fr. James Martin tries to introduce a new generation of spiritual seekers to the Jesuit tradition.

A pope who can and cannot change

A selection of articles from Commonweal on Benedict XVI.

Stanley Hauerwas & the Christian Difference

A gay parent on choosing Catholic school for her kids

For centuries we thought God was the source of our sense of God. It came as no surprise, therefore, when historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists discovered that even our remotest ancestors were religious. Isn’t the reality of God—or the presence of the sacred—enough to explain why human beings universally possess a 'faith instinct'? Not anymore. A review of Nicholas Wade's new book The Faith Instinct.

A review of Cardinal Francis George's The Difference God Makes

From the archives: the life & death of Oscar Romero

It is now clear that for more than two decades, simultaneous tragedies of episcopal malfeasance played out in both the U.S. and Irish churches, as bishops in both countries systematically mishandled allegations of child sexual abuse committed by their priests.

Spiritual Classics, at a Bookstore Near You

The great religious battle of our time is not the one being waged between believers and unbelievers. Yes, that's an important and certainly a noisy conflict. But more significant than that struggle is the clash occurring within religious traditions.

An interview with Diana Fritz Cates on Aquinas & the emotions

A review of Nicholas Lash's Theology for Pilgrims

A review of John Meier's landmark A Marginal Jew: Volume 4

David Tracy has God in a box. Or is it the other way around? For Tracy, long regarded as one of the most distinguished and adventuresome contemporary Catholic theologians, such a dilemma might be intriguing, even amusing, were it not so personal.

Knowledge of Calvin is of two kinds. There is knowledge of Calvin himself, as we know him in his life. And there is the knowledge of ourselves that we project onto this historical figure in the name of our many versions of Calvinism and anti-Calvinism.

These are interesting times for Anglican-Catholic relations in the United Kingdom. Four and a half centuries after Henry VIII effectively made himself pope of England, Britain has more active Roman Catholics than active Anglicans, and the Church of England seems to be threatened with step-by-step disestablishment within England itself.

How a motley crew of French Catholics inspired Vatican II

Beware those authorities who criticize the independent Catholic press on the ground that pluralism equals relativism. What they really favor is monopoly. They want a single joint blast on the trumpet, or an orchestra in full flow. What they do not like are the discordant notes.

A conversation with editors past and present

John L. Allen's The Future Church will disappoint some readers and exhaust others. It recapitulates much of what Allen has reported in recent years and offers an admittedly shaky premise on which to base a forecast.

If the priest is going to face east during Mass, so should everyone else.

Could the Mother of Jesus have had a greater role in the mission, Passion, and Resurrection of her son than the evangelists tell us? Could women have been important church leaders in early Christianity?

Solidarity and subsidiarity in Benedict XVI’s ’Caritas in veritate’

  Teilhard de Chardin’s startling relevance in a post-Darwin age.

Bible readers, especially Americans, look for truth in all the wrong places.

  Is worship the church’s alternative to war?

A view from the East

How to read the Vatican’s latest notification.

The theological legacy of John S. Dunne, CSC—from Buber to Bradbury.

  From the archives: Joseph Komonchak on Pope Benedict XVI’s theological vision.