Notre Dame, Indiana. When I was the Director of Harvard’s Center for the Study of World Religions (2010-2017), one of my favorite events was hosting discussions of new books by faculty, fresh and bright and often cutting edge writing by talented faculty at all stages of their careers.
In preparation for the book events, one of my favorite questions to the author was, How did you come to write this particular book? Given your expertise, the range of things you can write on, how did you narrow it down to the theme/s developed in the 200-300 pages of this book? The question was...
Notre Dame. In my first post in this series, I placed myself in the time of Lent, and in the desert. As Mark 1, the Gospel for Lent’s first Sunday, puts it:
And the Spirit immediately threw him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; he was with the wild beasts; the angels waited on him...
Notre Dame, Indiana. Lent is now upon us, and Christians everywhere, many of us with hint of Wednesday’s ashes still upon us, are summoned to the desert: to pray; to fast; to do works of charity – and by all of that, to convert our lives, to turn back to God, to walk with Jesus in ministry and on his way to Jerusalem.
South Bend, Indiana. It was by coincidence that the racist comments of Donald Trump on Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations, our remembrance of the Rev. Martin Luther King, and the 2nd Sunday of the Church year (January 14) all coincided this past weekend.
Cambridge, MA. The recent spate of sexual harassment cases has led to an unprecedented toppling of powerful men from their hitherto secure positions. May the exposures and oustings continue for a long time to come!
Cambridge, MA. It is hard not to be depressed at the constant flow of bad news, from the latest phobic utterances of Donald Trump and his friends, to chants at hate-filled rallies in Charlottesville (where I just spent three months), to anti-Muslim rhetoric in the media, to the slaughter of over 300 men...
Charlottesville, VA. In today’s political climate, everything is taking on a hostile and confrontational tone. We are increasingly alienated, unable and unwilling to understand and respect one another anymore. Religious leaders, including priests like me, tend to say that we need to go back to the religious roots of respect, and in particular, to be and do as Jesus did, the great peacemaker, friend of the poor, friend of all.
Yes, that the nice Jesus is too easy a model. Jesus was also an angry man. This came home to me on...
Charlottesville, VA. I’ve been thinking about religion and politics, church and state, this week, and not just because the unending news from Washington forces people of faith to think about where their loyalties should be, given the current state of our government. Yes, I am one of those who cannot understand how some Christians find it necessary to support a man whose personal life and personal and political values are so distant from Christian faith and morals; conversely, I admire Christians like Bree Newsome, who in the...
Charlottesville, VA. As readers of my first post may recall, I am spending much of this semester at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, where I will be giving lectures several weeks from now. I have been here over a month, but am still making sense of where I am.
Charlottesville, VA. This is the first in a new series of opinion pieces I will post at this new site, so allow me to introduce myself.
I have been a Jesuit (for nearly 50 years), Catholic priest (for nearly 40 years), and a professor at Harvard Divinity School (now in my 13th year, after 21 years at Boston College). I am an expert on certain texts and traditions of Hindu India, particularly in the Sanskrit and Tamil languages, on certain strands of Jesuit...
Cambridge, MA. It is hard not to be depressed at the constant flow of bad news, from the latest phobic utterances of Donald Trump and his friends, to chants at hate-filled rallies in Charlottesville (where I just spent three months), to anti-Muslim rhetoric in the media, to the slaughter of over 300 men...
