by Michael Rizzo
THE START OF the spring semester at St. John’s University, Jamaica, brought with it new classes, students returning to campus and for journalism majors, a day related to their area of study that is often overlooked.
Guest Columnists
The Highs and Lows of Engagement
It’s hard to believe that on Jan. 27 we will celebrate one year of being engaged. Both of us can remember every detail of that day: John recalls an atypically warm day preceded by a sleepless night of anticipation and excitement. Nicole mostly lived in ignorance and recalls nearly foiling the plot – first by slicing her left hand while cutting meat and then by going into work on a Saturday.
Squandering Moral Capital
The morality of tyrannicide is not much discussed in today’s kinder, gentler Catholic Church. Yet that difficult subject once engaged some of Catholicism’s finest minds, including Thomas Aquinas and Francisco Suárez, and it was passionately debated during the Second World War by German officers – many of them devout Christians – who were pondering the assassination of Adolf Hitler.
Growth Mindsets Open New Doors
During the New Year, many of us adopt new resolutions to improve ourselves. I suggest that we first take a step back to connect with mindsets that drive us to act. Mindsets are basic beliefs we hold about attributes such as our temperaments or capacity for change and learning.
Nothing About Us Without Us
The slogan “Nothing about us without us” was used by Solidarity in the 1980s in Poland, borrowing a royal motto from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the mid-second millennium. Then, it was expressed in Latin: Nihil de nobis sine nobis.
Lay Collaboration and Episcopal Authority
The Vatican is a hotbed of rumor, gossip and speculation at the best of times — and these times are not those times. The Roman atmosphere at the beginning of 2019 is typically fetid and sometimes poisonous, with a lot of misinformation and disinformation floating around. That smog of fallacy and fiction could damage February’s global gathering of bishops, called by the pope to address the abuse crisis that is impeding the Church’s evangelical mission virtually everywhere.
Faith or Fear? Finding The Path to Peace
by Sister Lois Okpara, D.D.L.
IN OUR JOURNEY of faith, we need to get our minds rightly set by allowing God His rightful place in our lives.
Soho Pilgrimage: A Christmas Meditation
To be a pilgrim is to be going somewhere. That somewhere is the Kingdom come among us at Christmas, and coming again in power and glory. The St. Patrick’s Advent Mission procession invited an aggressively secular and sometimes sordid part of London to join that journey to beatitude.
Focus on Others for a More Peaceful 2019
No matter where we look, peace is a rare commodity. How then can the new year be more peaceful?
Extra! Extra! Can You Read All About It?
by Greg Erlandson
Fifty-three journalists were killed worldwide in 2018. Some died in war, but a shocking number died exposing corruption, covering protests or just doing their job. Time magazine called them and their harassed and persecuted colleagues “Guardians” of truth, and named them collectively “Person of the Year.”