Social Justice

Article

Francis Sidesteps the Synod’s Recommendations

Francis’s post-synodal exhortation ‘Querida Amazonia’ is unique in more ways than one. It throws his one major structural reform into considerable turmoil.

February 14, 2020

Article

Don’t Blame Boomers

Joseph Sternberg’s latest book blames generational differences, rather than conservative politics, for the plight of young people today.

February 10, 2020

Article

Remembering Jerry Ryan

Ryan was a bit of a skeptic in his way, rejecting, or at least being indifferent to, church teachings that didn’t arise from identification with the poor.

By Tom Quigley

February 6, 2020

Article

Speaking Love to Power

Theodore Roszak’s work was more than an apologia for 60s counterculture. It was one of the era’s most impassioned attempts to revitalize the utopian imagination.

February 4, 2020

Secularism and Modernity

Environment

What do billionaires like Betsy DeVos know about running schools? Absolutely nothing, argues public education expert Diane Ravitch. That’s why we need to join the resistance: parents, teachers’ unions, and progressive politicians fighting to save the public sphere.

Article

The Irony of Opioids

The Sackler family is profiting by treating addictions to their own drugs—a darkly ironic indication of the extent of corporate greed and individual powerlessness.

January 30, 2020

Must Reads

Politics

Reading Buttigieg

I have known Buttigieg since I taught him at Harvard. One question animated him: how could Americans unite politically when their culture was increasingly polarized?

By James T. Kloppenberg

February 18, 2020

Religion

Strange Gods

The faith we place in markets and the sacrifices we offer on the altar of capitalism make all modern consumers part of an idolatrous system.

By William T. Cavanaugh

January 21, 2020

Culture

Giving Doctors a Say

Giving medical professionals some agency in end-of-life decisions can be consistent with church teaching. We just need to integrate the concept of futility.

By Michael Redinger

February 24, 2020

Books

The Poetry of Sam Menashe

The short poems of Samuel Menashe are unique: self-contained epigrams, charms, wishes, prayers, descriptive one-shots, shapely units of quotable wisdom.

By Stephanie Burt

February 5, 2020