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Over at dotCommonweal, I have posted a report on further Vatican penalties against the Jesuit theologian, Roger Haight: Now Haight is barred from writing at all on theology, and he can’t even teach at a non-Catholic school. Which means he’ll be leaving Union Theological Seminary at the end of the academic year. Read the post…

Feeling a little hangdog this morning? Overindulged last night? Bubbly? Booze? Any other “Killer Bs”? So you swear this is the dawning of a new day. It is a new year, after all. And right on cue, here’s your surefire cure: Go to church. In his weekly column last week, the Times’ John Tierney presents…

Inspired by William Safire’s annual Office Pool of predictions for the coming year, I am herewith inaugurating a “Catholic Pool” for 2009. Safire’s 2009 NYT pool column ran last Sunday, and you have to hand it to him for keeping it going even though he has an almost unbroken record of guessing wrong. Perhaps it…

The latest report shows housing values continue to plummet. And the misdeeds of swindlers like Bernie Madoff continue to proliferate. What to do? The German town of Augsburg–of the famous Lutheran Confession–has a very Catholic response: Dirt cheap rents ($.23 a year!) on decent homes in perpetuity–as long as the tenants pray for the eternal…

I thought the old saw that suicides increase during the holidays–the result, it was assumed, of isolation and despair deepened by the camaraderie ostensibly being enjoyed by everyone else–was an Urban Legend that I was the last to catch on to. Apparently not. This story by Jim Nichols of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer is a good…

The escalating warfare in the birthplace of the Prince of Peace may claim another victim: Benedict’s visit to Israel this May. According to CNS, Vatican sources have said a worsening of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict could alter the pope’s travel plans. Such a visit could provide the impetus for a cessation or lessening of hostilities, but…

Notre Dame’s well-known, highly-regarded–though not in some circles–theologian and commentator Richard McBrien spoke recently with the Globe’s Michael Paulson and, not surprisingly, fireworks ensued. Yet as often happens, it wasn’t so much anything McBrien said, as much as the apoplexy of the reactions to his even saying anything. For my money, McBrien is one of…

As a father of only a few years duration, I have developed an especial affection for St. Joseph, who always intrigued me given the short shrift he gets in the Gospels. And that leads to such odd devotions as burying him upside down in lawns to help sell you house. (Hey, in this market, who…

In this U.S. Catholic interview, scripture scholar Sr. Laurie Brink, OP provides some very sensible, scholarly, and faith-based pastoral answers to questions you may have wondered about the Gospel accounts of Christmas–but were afraid to ask. For instance: Why do the stories differ in these significant details? One way to account for differences is that…

But he’s not quite like you’ve been told. He was St. Nicholas of Myra, in fourth-century Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), and as Kim Lawton of Religion & Ethics Newsweekly shows, some Americans are re-discovering a truly profound Christmas character: “St. Nicholas was a real person. Not a fairy, not someone who’s flying through the sky…
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