Magazine

December 18, 2015

v.142 n.20

Article

A Joy, Not a Nuisance

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.

By Michael W. Higgins

December 15, 2015

Article

'Between the World and Me'

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.

By Don Wycliff

December 11, 2015

Secularism and Modernity

Article

'Spotlight' & 'Truth'

'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.

By Richard Alleva

December 4, 2015

Movies

Article

Burdens & Blesings

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.

By Rand Richards Cooper

December 3, 2015

Death and Dying

End-of-life Issues

Spirituality

Article

'Once in a Great City'

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.

By Leslie Woodcock Tentler

December 3, 2015

Article

'His Own Received Him Not'

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.

December 3, 2015

Article

'Go Set a Watchman'

'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.

December 3, 2015

Article

'A History of Loneliness'

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?

By Timothy P. Schilling

December 2, 2015

Secularism and Modernity

Article

'Utopia, Limited'

Anahid Nersessian argues that Romanticism dramatizes the “desirability of constraint.” Her book on how British Romantics imagined "utopia" powerfully does the same.

December 2, 2015

Secularism and Modernity

Spirituality

Article

The 4 p.m. Blues

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.'

December 2, 2015

Article

Hell, Population Zero

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.

By Albert B. Hakim

December 2, 2015

Spirituality

Theology

Article

Letters | An unstifled church, false friends

Readers respond to those "brimming with raw hostility to this liberal pope," and recent challenges to the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia.

By The Editors

December 2, 2015

Article

Three Poems

“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...

By Lou Ella Hickman

December 2, 2015

Poetry

Spirituality

Article

Poem | Raccoon

He abides near / flowing water even when it’s / underground, knowing how to ghost / across the cornfield to the least whisper of runoff...

By Michael Cadnum

December 2, 2015

Poetry

Article

Don't Shut the Door

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.

By The Editors

December 1, 2015

Muslim-Christian Relations

War and Peace