In the days after Vatican II, confession slipped its old juridical moorings, with its distinctive laws, regulations, judgment, and penance. At the moment it is searching for new moorings. What will confession look like once it finds them?

John Berryman's addresses to God

We’re still debating whether what we’re doing in Libya can rightly be described as war, though bombs dropped amid an “intervention” are just as deadly. But where’s the debate over whether it’s fair or accurate to assert that Republicans in Congress have not-so-stealthily declared a “war on women”?

Lisa Sowle Cahill’s middle way

Benedict & condoms

Why some devout Catholics are leaving the church

The story of the first member of Focolare to be beatified

A short & unfinished history 

In 1922, the Vatican issued norms for handling the canonical crime of the sexual abuse of minors by priests. The document was revised in 1962, and remained in force until 2001. Why did so few bishops know about it?

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

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 selection of articles from Commonweal on Benedict XVI.

Stanley Hauerwas & the Christian Difference

The New York Times's worldview is secularist and secularizing, and as such it rivals the Catholic worldview. But what makes the Times unique is that it is not just the nation's self-appointed newspaper of record. It is, to paraphrase Chesterton, an institution with the soul of a church.

How I became an adult Catholic

  What does secularism mean for the spiritual quest—of believers & nonbelievers alike?

  An exclusive excerpt from his new book.

  Dealing with the spiritual-but-not-religious epidemic.