Magazine

July/August 2023

v.150 n.7

Article

Something Greater

April Bernard on her new collection, the poets who inspire her, and the spiritual world that exists behind the material one.

By Anthony Domestico

August 21, 2023

Poetry

Interview

Feature

Two Roads Home

I-94 reduces things to a featureless blur or sets them at an invisible distance. M-60 presses everything against the windshield.

By Peter Schwendener

August 20, 2023

Domestic Affairs

Article

‘The Craic Was Mighty’

When I moved to New York City, I was searching for community and connection. I found it in traditional Irish music.

By Isabella Simon

August 19, 2023

Music

The Last Word

Article

Is Ethics Like Math?

A new biography of philosopher Derek Parfit explains the eccentric philosopher's quest to find a legitimate secular moral theory.

August 17, 2023

Feature

Legion of Mary

“So, the reason I love her so much, Billie, is that she knows, she knows everything, she knows about love, and she knows about hate, and she sees everything.”

By Mary Gordon

August 15, 2023

Fiction

Feature

Diversity Done Right

Exhibits celebrating Juan de Pareja and modern Latino artists devote necessary attention to topics that have been willfully marginalized or ignored.

By Alejandro Anreus

August 14, 2023

Arts

Latin America

Article

A New Social Democracy?

Brad DeLong’s expansive economic history is organized around a question: Why, despite constant innovation, haven’t we solved our deepest economic problems?

August 7, 2023

Article

Child Labor Isn’t in the Past

We can’t afford to play dumb as labor protections fail and disappear. Treating children like cheap labor costs too much.

By Mollie Wilson O’Reilly

August 6, 2023

Labor

Politics

Domestic Affairs

Feature

Waiting on the Threshold

Núria López Torres and Agus Morales meet migrants stuck at the Mexican border.

By Núria López Torres and Agus Morales

July 31, 2023

Article

The Civil Theology of Robert Bellah

Robert Bellah's civil religion examines how modernity promised freedom to all but delivered oppression to many.

By Matthew Rose

July 29, 2023

Secularism and Modernity

Theology

Domestic Affairs

Article

The CCP’s Surveillance Philosophy

Can China's use of artificial intelligence and facial recognition be a force for good?

July 28, 2023

Artificial Intelligence

Article

Imperiling Migrants at Sea

Almost six hundred migrants died on a perilous journey crossing the Mediterranean Sea. What did officials do to try to prevent the disaster?

By Regina Munch

July 23, 2023

Immigration

Death and Dying

Article

Gun Crazy

Why is a proposed amendment to enshrine gun control considered crazier than a status quo of constant mass shootings?

By Dominic Preziosi

July 21, 2023

Gun Control

Domestic Affairs

Article

Heat Check

“Making sure every American has access to air-conditioning is essential. Doing so without burning yet more fossil fuels is equally essential.”

By Miles Doyle

July 19, 2023

Environment

Climate Change

Politics

Article

The Court Protects Privilege

Aggressive legislation is needed to turn education into the public good it should be, instead of the hoarded commodity it now is.

By The Editors

July 17, 2023

Article

The Electric Prose of Martin Amis

Remembering the comic force and electric prose of the late Martin Amis, a true writer’s writer.

By Morten Høi Jensen

June 30, 2023

Literature

Death and Dying

Article

Socialist Weather

Jenny Erpenbeck’s latest novel, ‘Kairos,’ depicts a love affair haunted by history, preoccupied with the passage of time.

June 22, 2023

Article

The Politics of Avoidance

Let’s not kid ourselves: the recent debt ceiling deal solves nothing.

By Andrew J. Bacevich

June 11, 2023

Article

A Win-Win-Win?

We can do better than parish mergers—the parish director model promotes lay leadership and keeps parishes intact in the face of priest shortages.

By Jon Metz

May 18, 2023

The American Parish Today

Priesthood

Bishops

Religion

Article

Poem | Reach Out Your Hands

"Reach out your hands to us. / Pulled apart too soon from our mother’s clasp / We range in darkness"

By Wally Swist

July 18, 2023

Poetry

Article

Shame / turns out to be a choice, a wire taut / on the trap we set ourselves, of use until it’s not.

Two Poems by April Bernard

By April Bernard

July 18, 2023

Poetry

Article

Poem | Fish

"Wavelets / rasping rocks, / replying as glass to glass / glass through glass"

By Brian Swann

July 18, 2023

Poetry

Article

Poem | The Second Perilous Mystery

"The voice of a desert bird / Was a cry in the wilderness, to the wilderness, / Striking the rocks and cliffs, / Which, hearing nothing, send it back to the sky."

By Lawrence Dugan

July 18, 2023

Poetry

Article

Books in Brief

This month, the editors are reading film history, journalism about surveillance, and novels.

By The Editors

July 18, 2023

Books in Brief

Fiction

Nonfiction

Article

I mourn our collective ignorance of what the Spirit offered us at Vatican II. Has the oasis dried up?

Letters | Higher education, nuns and abuse, Baptism, AI

By The Editors

July 16, 2023

Letters

Article

Remembering Tim Keller

Beyond his many accomplishments as a theologian and public intellectual, Tim Keller ultimately triumphed as a pastor—as a man who shared the good news with kindness.

By Katherine Lucky

May 30, 2023

Theology

Religion