Publisher Description

The candidacy of John F. Kennedy provoked widespread discussion of issues relating to church and state and to the role of Catholics in American politics. This text is the inside story of that dramatic campaign and is the first scholarly examination based on actual voting returns. It includes a detailed analysis of the vote in every state, revealing that religion affected the outcome of the election far more than previously thought. Kennedy lost more votes than he gained due to his religious affiliation, but by crafting a strong coalition, he prevailed in one of the closest races in presidential history.

"And so the way we worship apparently matters less to God than the way we make love. The diagnosis may not be limited to Roman Catholicism, for today Jewish, Protestant, and Muslim communities also struggle to decide what the next world holds for their sexual dissidents. Curiously, debates over where gay people belong now feed into debates over how much equality women deserve in the West's three major faith traditions."--BOOK JACKET.

On November 10, 1938, Francis Schott slept peacefully in his bed. Suddenly, a group of Nazis broke into his house and began to destroy it. They wanted to demolish everything because Francis's family was Jewish. For days, violent attacks like this took place throughout Nazi Germany and came to be known as Kristallnacht, the "Night of Broken Glass." The Nazis destroyed thousands of Jewish homes and businesses, burned down hundreds of synagogues, and murdered many people. The brutal assault came to an end, but it marked the beginning of something much worse: the Holocaust.

In this national bestseller, the most influential layman in the United States reports that the Roman Catholic Church in America must either profoundly reform or lapse into permanent irrelevance.

For over forty years, John Garvey was the “ballast” of Commonweal magazine. His award-winning essays and consistently notable columns revealed not only his acuity and alacrity, but his uncommon spiritual insight. These in turn provided momentum and substance for whatever followed in an issue of the magazine because Garvey never hesitated to wrestle with some of the most challenging and intractable topics of the day, and did so with a rich pastoral sensitivity, and a refreshing and rare intelligence. Only Wonder Comprehends gleans from John Garvey’s many contributions to Commonweal that reflect his spiritual depth and deep appreciation of history, politics, theology, and culture. Steeped in the Christian tradition, Garvey loved to write and, in return, his readers relished what he wrote. It is hoped that this collection of his writings from Commonweal will inspire readers to cultivate a similar sense of attentiveness and commitment, for as the author himself observed, “Religious traditions are meant to transform us, not to affirm us as we are.”

By any measure, Dorothy Day lived a fascinating life. She was a journalist, activist, single mother, convert, Catholic laywoman, and co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. A lifelong radical who took the gospels at their word, Dorothy Day lived among the poor as one of them, challenging both church and state to build a better world for all people. Steeped in prayer, the liturgy, and the spiritual life, she was jailed repeatedly for protesting poverty, injustice, and war. Through it all, she created a sense of community and remained down-to-earth and humanly approachable. To have known Dorothy Day was to have experienced not only her charm and humanity, but the purposefulness of her life. In Dorothy Day: Love in Action, Patrick Jordan--who knew her personally--conveys some of the hallmarks of Day's fascinating life and the spirit her adventure inspires. People of God is a series of inspiring biographies for the general reader. Each volume offers a compelling and honest narrative of the life of an important twentieth or twenty-first century Catholic. Some living and some now deceased, each of these women and men has known challenges and weaknesses familiar to most of us but responded to them in ways that call us to our own forms of heroism. Each offers a credible and concrete witness of faith, hope, and love to people of our own day.

A journal of lay Catholic opinion.

This important new work elaborates and defends an account of the political morality of liberal democracy.