Essay: Pope Francis teaches how to love those we see as sinners
The death penalty is wrong in all cases. That’s what Pope Francis proclaimed in early August, and that’s what the Church’s Catechism will be revised to say. It’s an [...]
Chicago History: Haki Madhubuti, the most influential African-American leader you’ve probably never heard of
This is an expanded version of an article that appeared 8.29.18 in the Chicago Reader. Don L. Lee was ten years old when his mother Maxine took him and [...]
Book review: “Bone on Bone” by Julia Keller
Julia Keller’s latest novel Bone on Bone is a story of misery and love. It is the story of people whose lives are full of misery. Sometimes, for them, [...]
Essay: The death penalty and the evolution of faith
The Church’s understanding of what it means to live a Christian life has been evolving for 2,000 years and will continue to do so. For instance, the early [...]
Book review: “Wyrd Sisters” by Terry Pratchett
That great and silly American writer Christopher Moore, in recent years, has mined the Shakespeare canon for sources for his comic novels. You could call this thievery. Or you [...]
Book review: “Building A Revolutionary State: The Legal Transformation of New York, 1776-1783” by Howard Pashman
For Great Britain, the late 18th-century conflict with its North American colonies was a civil war. The colonists were in rebellion and needed to be policed. For [...]
Book review: “A Book of Silence” by Sara Maitland
Since 2000, British writer Sara Maitland has been investigating, searching for, reaching for silence. Eight years through the still-ongoing process, she wrote about her endeavor in A Book [...]
Poem: “The lost tribes”
The lost tribes for Haki Madhubuti I found the lost tribes in America, eating fries with city workers at the McDonald’s on Western Avenue. I [...]
Essay: “My soul magnifies the Lord”
For 2000 years, Mary the mother of Jesus has been a major figure in Christian theology, liturgy and art and a major inspiration to believers working to live their faith [...]
Book review: “War and Our World: The Reith Lectures 1998” by John Keegan
War is violent, chaotic, destructive, deadly and, for the aggressor nowadays, morally wrong. Yet, how to fight war except with war? Two decades ago, in a series of [...]