Image from Pixy This article is part of our “Reflecting on COVID-19” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. The COVID-19 crisis has strained religious institutions, along with the rest of our accustomed social order. In a few cases, it has also provoked the latest drama in the complex encounter between…
Image by Peter H from Pixabay As the United States nears the grim milestone of 150,000 American coronavirus deaths and cases surge in many parts of the country, a number of states are pausing or reversing their reopening plans. Many states are also weighing whether to put back in place the numerical limits on indoor…
Image adapted from Wikicommons by DhLeaks44 / CC BY-SA 4.0 “Judge Not: The Problem with Georgia’s Charge about Religious Objection to Jury Service” Matthew P. Cavedon At the start of most criminal trials in Georgia, the judge gives those called for jury duty a quick overview of the jury selection process. This includes warning them that the attorneys…
Photo by George Becker on Pexels During the closing days of its 2019-20 term, the Supreme Court’s trilogy of rulings in the companion cases of Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru and St. James School v. Biel, Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, and Espinoza v. Montana Department…
Photo by kkolosov on Pixabay This article is part of our “Reflecting on COVID-19” series.If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. Like most of us these days, we were sitting on the couch. My husband said grimly, “Let’s see what’s going on in the world…” and turned on the news. The…
Photo by sk on Pexels The image of Donald Trump wielding a Bible outside St. John’s Episcopal Church, a snapshot that occurred immediately after protestors were penetrated with tear gas and rubber bullets in order to clear space for the President, quickly became a target of controversy. Some critics, including former Defense Secretary James Mattis,…
Photo by Nadim Shaikh from Pexels This essay was originally delivered as a speech at the annual dinner of Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries of Greater Boston on June 6, 2020. I am grateful for the invitation of Rodney Petersen and the Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries of Greater Boston to speak at this year’s annual dinner, this year a virtual event in…
Capitolio Nacional Seat of the Congress. Bogotá, Colombia. 2008. Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 3.0 Transitional Justice in Colombia In the past ten years, under the flag of transitional justice, Colombia has sought to implement a series of measures to confront the legacy of the conflict regarding property and land tenancy. In 2011, the government enacted…
“Mount Nebo” by Maya-Anaïs Yataghène / Wikimedia CC BY 2.0 The doctrine of subsidiarity is most closely associated with modern Roman Catholic Social Teaching, particularly as codified in the social encyclicals Quadragesimo Anno (1931) and Centesimus Annus (1991). In the latter document, Pope John Paul II defines subsidiarity as the principle that “a community of…
Civil unrest in Philadelphia, PA. June 2, 2020. / Rob Buhlman / Flickr / CC-BY-2.0 The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020 triggered an unprecedented wave of protests in the United States and all around the world from Australia to the UK, France, Tunisia, and Iraq. This worldwide wave of protests…