Are We Salvageable?

I missed most of the Easter Sunday NBC production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” but I’ve been watching segments on YouTube and have been so moved by Sara Bareilles’ rendition of ...

Why I Write These Essays

I’m coming up on my 250th blog – appearing as essays on some sites – since I began publishing them five years ago. I’m sure many people who see them ...

Is This All There Is? (Bernice, almost 100 and mostly blind, provides an answer.)

In his weekly column, America Magazine editor Matt Malone writes about visiting, as a young Jesuit novice, a woman named Bernice in a hospital in Boston. Nearly 100, Bernice had ...

A Peace That Is Attainable

First, Happy Easter! It’s hard for a Christian believer to ignore Easter, arguably the most important feast day for Christians. But I know that for many people who are searching ...

The Ultimate Unifying View of Life

A recent article on the web page of National Public Radio contained these sentences: “We now know that all extant living creatures derive from a single common ancestor, called LUCA, ...

Does Faith Breed Mediocrity?

Among the interesting people I covered as medical/science writer for The Des Moines Register was Patricia Clare Sullivan, alias “Attila the Nun.” Her obituary was in the newspaper recently. She ...