By Carolyn Y. Woo In the Catholic Relief Services guest dining room in Baltimore, we have decorated the left wall with pictures of various grains, plants, trees and water. The inscription reads: “We shall see the bounty of the Lord.” On the opposing wall, we have the words from Psalm 27:13, “in the land of […]
Guest Columnists
Gratitude Is the Essence of Religion
By Father William J. Byron, S.J. As the Thanksgiving season quickly spills over into Advent and Christmas, many people find themselves remarking that this is their favorite time of the year. Thanksgiving Day is, of course, a secular feast day, and we know Christmas is not. And most of those who speak of “the holidays” […]
Lessons from Dietrich Von Hildebrand
Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889-1977), a German Catholic philosopher, was part of a circle of thinkers that first formed around Edmund Husserl, founder of the philosophical method known as “phenomenology.” Others in that circle included Max Scheler, on whom Karol Wojtyla (St. John Paul II) wrote his second doctoral thesis, and Edith Stein, now St. Teresa […]
Vatican II and The Berlin Wall
History sometimes displays the happy capacity to arrange anniversaries so that one sheds light on another. On Nov. 21, 1964, Pope Paul VI solemnly promulgated the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, which began by proclaiming Christ the “Light of the Nations” and is thus known as “Lumen Gentium.” In November, 1989, the […]
A Modern Synod is Needed For a Modern Family
By Kelly Bothum I will be honest – the recent Synod of Bishops on the family was not a topic of discussion at my family’s dinner table. Finding half an hour for our family of five to scarf down the latest concoction in the slow cooker before we splinter off to the next band practice, […]
Ecumenism and Russian State Power
Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Russian Orthodox Church’s department of external relations and a frequent visitor to the West, is a man of parts: a widely published author, a composer, a gifted linguist. He can be charming and witty, as I discovered at the Library of Congress in 2011, and in the intervening […]
Doctor Addresses Ebola Epidemic in Person
Jesuit Father William J. Byron shares the story of a Catholic-school educated Philadelphia physician who has volunteered to use her medical knowledge and skills to minister to Ebola patients in Africa.
Caring for the World One Family at a Time
Catholic news Service columnist Effie Calderola shares her experience of belonging to a Catholic group that is working on a project to help a refugee family resettle in her city.
Learning to Create Good Relationships
How do you create a good relationship – one that gets you down the aisle instead of in the land of tears and heartbreak? Catholic News Service columnist Karen Osborne offers her suggestions.
Exploded Into Being By Divine Love
Long fascinated by cosmology, George Weigel discusses the Big Bang theory, the work of Jesuit Father Georges Lemaître and a new dialogue between science and religion.