Sightings Articles
New Revisions to the Catholic Liturgy -- Heather A. Hartel
The words in the Catholic mass are changing, again. Over the protests of some liberal American prelates, the Vatican and the US Conference of Catholic bishops recently approved changes to the English translation of the central prayers of the li...
September 4, 2008
The Order of Saint Oprah — Aaron Curtis
Is there incipient within the modern cult of the self a desire for a more constrictive way of life? Have those of us who live comfortably within the lax constraints of secular humanism discovered that we long for some rigorous "rule of life"? Some me...
July 31, 2008
On Women's Ordination — Martin E. Marty
Robert J. Egan, S. J., of Gonzaga University, started it all (this round) with an article in the April 11Commonweal, in which he asked whether official Roman Catholics ought to consider reconsidering the Vatican declarations against the ordination of...
July 28, 2008
Preaching Good News to the Poor — Debra Erickson
It is by now old news - or should be - that evangelical Christians have developed a social conscience that goes beyond wedge issues like abortion and gay rights. Some are even (gasp!) registered Democrats. In the most recent issue of Books and Cultur...
July 25, 2008
Secular Poets, Sacred Problems — V. Joshua Adams
Charles Simic, outgoing U.S. Poet Laureate, recently published his nineteenth book of poems, entitled That Little Something. The title is both a joke and a lament: Simic is a poet who, during a long and successful career, has mastered the art of soun...
July 24, 2008
Fundamentalism in Europe — Martin E. Marty
Off to Prague this week for the Tenth International (Dietrich) Bonhoeffer Congress, to present a synoptic view of fundamentalism(s). The conferees are probing ways in which the life and record of the theologian put to death by the Nazis in the last m...
July 21, 2008
Left Behind or Left in Cyberspace? — Noreen Herzfeld
As a teenager, when a friend first told me about the rapture, in which Christians will be miraculously transported to heaven while sinners remain on earth to suffer a variety of tribulations, I was quite sure that, sinner that I was, I was destined t...
July 17, 2008
Peacemaking — Martin E. Marty
The Economist's (July 5) long headline talks about "Mediation and Faith: Not a Sword, but Peace." The subtitle notes that "In some cases, only the religious have the patience to be reconcilers." The anonymous editors include a couple of cautionary no...
July 14, 2008
The Economy of Relics — Spencer Dew
The most discussed aspect of this month's release of baseball card company Topps' "Triple Threads Baseball" series is, in fact, not related to baseball at all. Inserted in a single pack of baseball cards will be a "relic" of President Woodrow Wilson,...
July 10, 2008
On Patriotism — Martin E. Marty
Ninety years ago this Fourth of July weekend, the City Council of West Point, Nebraska passed a resolution that citizens were not to hold "assemblages not in sympathy with the war" or to distribute literature "out of harmony with the war," that is, W...