What Jesuits (Like Pope Francis) Do, and What Ross Douthat Is Missing

douthat Ross Douthat’s To Change the Church is a highly readable but to my taste over-dramatized account of the papacy of Francis. It is opinionated, unsurprisingly for a highly regarded New York Times op-ed writer. It does...

Pope Francis: The Threat of Gnosticism within the Church

Gnostics

Notre Dame, Indiana. I was intrigued a few weeks ago — sorry to be getting to this only now, when so much has already been...

Enlightenment Here: Steven Pinker's Myth of a Secular Harvard

Notre Dame.

CSWR

I am enjoying a productive semester's sabbatical at the University of Notre Dame, at its wonderful Institute for Advanced Study. But for over a decade I have been a professor at Harvard University, in the Divinity...

Image to Insight: A Book for Our Times

Mary Notre Dame. It is a bit late in the Lenten season to be recommending a book for quiet reading and meditation, but after some delay, I am still eager to call to your attention...

On What (Not) to Say and Write: Jesus in the Desert 3

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...

Among the Wild Beasts: Between Harvard and Notre Dame

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...

Into the Desert (between Harvard and Notre Dame)

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.

...

Who Gets to Be a Prophet?

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 2^nd Sunday of the Church year (January 14) all coincided this past weekend. Samuel in the night

Have We Forgotten How to Repent - and to Forgive?

ashes 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!

We Are Winning: Interreligious Respect and Friendship on the Rise

11.26.17 Blog 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...

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