Churchlifejournal

In her seminal book, On Beauty and Being Just, Elaine Scarry notes that the encounter between Odysseus and Nausicaa in book six of Homer’s Odyssey stands ...

Art, like all good things, is given. Even as we hone our crafts, we are hoping at best to be made fit for something we can only passively receive. For what do you have that has not been given to you? This is part of what T.S. Eliot gets at in his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” when he talks of poetry as a use of personality toward impersonality...

Significant portions of the Catholic world eagerly await the first encyclical from Pope Leo XIV. How will Leo define his papacy? What topics will take priority? And what sort of message will he give to the world? An “encyclical” is a letter from a pope to all people of good will that addresses social, moral, or doctrinal teachings. Encyclicals offer guidance and motivati...

In a previous essay, I suggested that intensive use of technology, and especially digital technology, makes it more difficult to be a Christian. There is a widespread myth out there that the onl...

There is a wonderful story told of St. Lawrence, who when a Roman prefect gave him three days to hand over the wealth of the local Church, sold it all and gave the proceeds to the needy. He then gathered up the sick, the poor, and the ...