Heaney’s legacy and his continued popularity as a lyric poet rest on the twelve volumes from which this selection is chosen. What makes his work so alluring?
The Shakers, who arrived in America in 1774, are a religious community facing extinction. Their decline means nothing less than the end of an idea of heaven.
Thanksgiving is at once the most traditional of holidays and the most radical. Even the best things we do are contingent on support and help from others.
The territory along the Syrian-Turkish border is the ancestral homeland of an ancient tradition of Aramaic-speaking Christianity. They’ve been betrayed before.
What do me mean when we discuss religion? Do we refer to an integrated ethnicity and culture? In these darkening times, the word’s origins matter more than ever.
Rather than pagan nature-worship, perhaps the statue of a pregnant woman suggests that the Amazonian people are bringing the seeds of the gospel to fruition.
Did liberalism originate in a kind of theodicy? And is there any reason to suppose that egalitarian liberalism is or has to be theological? Not necessarily.
Before their semi-annual meeting in Baltimore, the U.S. bishops are traveling to Rome to meet for a rare meeting with Pope Francis. Here’s what you can expect.
What matters at the Amazon synod is not the imperative of universal consistency across all regions of the church, but the pastoral welfare of the People of God.
Guadalupe began as a paradoxical figure, both symbol of indigenous faith and tool of colonialist oppression. Now, she demands we listen to the poor and marginalized.
Best known for his autobiographical and educational works, John Henry Newman now has the distinction of being the only saint with two published novels to his credit.
How did mainstream American Christianity became intellectually respectable and modern? The critical study of post-biblical Christianity played a key role.
2019 marks the 800-year anniversary of St. Francis of Assisi’s meeting with Egypt’s Sultan Malik al-Kamil during the Fifth Crusade. The dialogue must continue.
There is a basic division in contemporary Jewish life, and in all communities that purport to interpret a religious tradition: that of self-expression and community.
Kathryn Tanner offers a pointed theological critique of finance capitalism, which inverts the Christian understanding of human dignity and the dignity of work.
Poet and novelist Fanny Howe is an experimental writer’s experimental writer, the author of dozens of books, one who remains publicly, committedly Catholic.
Is liberal democracy really so exhausted that there is no choice but to abandon it? The hopeful answer, articulated earlier by Italian priest Luigi Sturzo, is no.
Big business has a growing public relations problem. But the whims of wealthy philanthropists alone cannot bring about the economic justice envisioned by the gospel.
A new show at the Barnes in Philadelphia transports audiences into the heart of the Bill Viola’s pioneering inquiries into the phenomenon of visual perception.
Thomas Merton taught me to value self-denial, but a bout of depression forced me to question whether asceticism was the healthiest response to my life.
Soviet novelist Vasily Grossman is not often thought of as a religious thinker. But his Armenian travelogue shows a different, more numinous side of his work.
The idea of religious liberty was not simply the product of the Enlightenment. It has ancient origins, going back to early Christians suffering persecution in Rome.
Vatican II marked a turning point, showing that appropriate change did not mean losing one’s identity but, rather, enhancing it or salvaging it from ossification.
Daniel Callahan was one of the most influential editors in Commonweal’s history, and the preeminent creator of the field of bioethics. He passed away on July 16.
Should Christians renounce both the eating of sentient creatures and the performance of experiments on them? Yes, we should, to the extent that we can.
Pope Francis’s gift of St. Peter’s relics to the Orthodox patriarch is remarkable. Rather than righting a previous wrong, it constitutes a genuine self-emptying.
It can be appealing to think of the Bible as a stable, fixed text. But paleography is not an exact science, even in the hands of the best practitioners.
Most of the films in competition at Cannes were quieter, more richly textured meditations on love, loss, and identity. But the specter of Trump loomed large.
Drawing on the mystery of Christ in the liturgy to nourish one’s own life of faith is not always a self-evident or easy thing to do. We need to become mystagogues.
The recent UN report on the rapid loss of biodiversity failed to arouse our concern. But endangered ecosystems reflect our gravely sinful habits of consumption.
