I recently had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Religious Education Congress, an annual gathering of about 40,000 Catholics who come from all over the country and descend upon Anaheim, California. The event has grown from a conference aimed at religious education instructors to one that has something for everyone: social justice, meditation, spiritual practice, theology, and dance and song. It was at this conference last month that my commitment to Catholic Social Teac

Having worked for several years to advance the Consistent Ethic of Life as an editor for Life Matters Journal and a member of the organization Consistent Life, I wanted to offer some thoughts on this principle. How should supporters of the Ethic understand it? What concerns should the Ethic include—and not include? I acknowledge at the outset that these questions do not have “right” answers. Those who support the Consistent Ethic of Life are a diverse and loosely organized co

Undertale is an independently developed video game created and written by Toby Fox that was released this past September. It has since done what few indie games have ever done by taking the world by storm in a short amount of time, becoming a cult hit for a new generation. But the true accomplishment of Undertale is not just its underdog status. Undertale's biggest selling point was that it was an old-school role-playing game where nonviolence is an option and no one has to d

As a millennial, my life is inundated with social media. Whether it's Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, or a myriad of other social sites dedicated to sharing (or oversharing) our lives, I have dozens and dozens of new notifications every day promising to keep me abreast of every little detail of my friends' lives or, conversely, their opinions of my own life. And though social media has made great strides in the connectedness between social movements and their g

My friend Vincent [a pseudonum] lived in a state-run institution called Forest Haven outside of Washington, DC, from early adulthood until his mid-50s. Vincent had a mild intellectual disability. In the early 1980s, he was welcomed into a fledgling L’Arche community in Northwest DC, a place where people with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities shared life together. I met him when I joined L’Arche as an Assistant (the L’Arche term for “staff”) in 2005. Vinc

BY NICHOLAS NEAL We often hear partisan pundits criticize their opponents for the opponents' inconsistencies about killing people. We hear that pro-life advocates do not respect the sanctity of life in war zones. We hear that peace advocates are not so peaceful when it comes to unborn children. What is the answer to this inconsistency? The simple answer is being consistent. This ideological position is known as the consistent life ethic. The foundation for this ethic is

BY NICHOLAS NEAL The abolition of the death penalty in Illinois began when Governor George Ryan placed a moratorium on capital punishment in the state in 2000, after seeing an alarming number of death row inmates being exonerated. Eleven years later, the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill officially abolishing capital punishment in Illinois. It was then up to Pat Quinn to sign it. Now, although Governor Quinn is a Democrat, he had previously spoken in favor of capital

BY OLIVIA MELDRUM While I am mistress of my mind, You will sleep safely every hour. No morning will you wake to find My warmth turned cold, or sweetness sour. A fragile burden do I bear (O precious visitor; flesh brand-new) - I forget my face and clothes and hair In pain and consciousness of you. My little one, your mama hurts. She shakes at every strange man's gaze. You've joined the Dance - this you deserve; But our dance, dear, limps through a maze. I am not mistress of my

BY MARY KRANE DERR The right to access the full range of voluntary family planning methods is often neglected or actively undermined in the name of prolife, especially but not exclusively in the United States. Yet there are nine good reasons -- at least -- why fostering this right is essential to respect in practical deed for all human lives, already born and unborn. 1. Family planning freedom prevents millions of human deaths every year. Voluntary access to modern methods o

BY NICHOLAS NEAL & AIMEE BEDOY On Tuesday, August 23rd, the rebel forces in Libya stormed Gadhafi's capital of Tripoli, thus declaring victory over the tyrannical leader who had once imposed unjust and inhumane purification laws against his own people. After 42 years in power as an autocratic dictator in Libya, Muammar Gadhafi has been removed from power by rebels within his own borders. Gadhafi is currently out of power and in hiding from NATO forces, but in an effort to k

BY AIMEE BEDOY & STEVEN OETJEN A quandary of major proportions faces our nation in this day and age. It could be a matter of life and death for countless persons -- we cannot truly be sure. This paper seeks to examine abortion through the lens of Constitutional law, science, and justice, and lastly to apply these faculties to the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act recently passed in Nebraska. In brief, our recommendation is always to stand for justice and ultimately

BY BILL SAMUEL What should our attitude -- as individuals, social movements and nations -- be toward war? When, if ever, is war justifiable either as to our own participation or as a decision of a nation or social movement? How do we get to a meaningful peace? These questions have been discussed and debated for millennia, and may be even more vital in this day of advanced weaponry. They have been discussed by people from many different religious traditions, and from none.

BY LILIANNA SERBICKI Swollen, a dream on its way to fruition; Nothing romantic. Lense (soft-focus) gone. Real fruit bruises; a real fruit stays the motion We make ourselves. Our unkempt pieces drawn Into alignment; some beings are too real To smudge with soft words. Some beings delight In waking up the small pith in the chest With beating limbs. It is a sudden sleight Of soul, not hand; the itch will soon persuade Myself to love my stippled skin far more Than when it held jus

BY AIMEE BEDOY I am writing this ten years to the day that those towers fell. And ten years later, I want us to discuss what we have learned from September 11, 2001, and where we as a nation must continue to grow. I am speaking as someone who grew up in this culture, immersed in it wholly from the time I was 12 years old. Perhaps I am not the wisest, or the most sage member of society to speak on these points, but this is what I have learned from my childhood to the present

BY JULIA SMUCKER It's that time of year again -- or has been, since sometime last year. The mud is flying left and right as a motley crew of politicians competes for our nation's volatile confidence. And who are they trying to appeal to? For a myriad of confounding reasons, our national political discourse has become so polemicized that most prominent candidates, as well as many commentators, seem able to do little more than preach to particular choirs within their own par