Editorial

The Supper That Lasts

The Last Supper is the supper that lasts. It is a traditional sign that expresses lasting relationship. Augustine’s definition of a sign makes a good starting point: “A sign is a thing, which besides the impression it conveys to the senses, also has the effect of making something else come to mind.” It creates the […]

To Be Religious Is To Be Inter-Religious

“In a pluralist society like that of India, authentic religion necessarily implies a relationship with other religions… ; in a word: to be religious is to be inter-religious.” This is a text from the Declaration of the Indian Theological Association, which takes up the theme of the contemporary inevitability of a level of inter-religiosity as […]

Take the Crucified Down From The Cross

Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate. Under any and every political domination people get crucified. The Ukraine war is collective crucifixion of humanity. It is a war between two factions of Christians who convert the cross as a weapon of domination and subjugation. The vocation as a Christian, and deeper still as a human being, […]

The Eucharistic Reality

The Gospel of Jesus is not a Gospel for the Church or its members alone, but Good News for the world: Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The church as the one community of Lord Jesus Christ, who is Lord of the world, has the commission to say his Word to the whole world. The territory of the […]

The Failure of Rationality

Bertold Brecht (1898-1956), German poet, playwright, and theatrical reformer wrote in his poem “To Posterity”: Truly, I live in dark times! An artless word is foolish. A smooth forehead Points to insensitivity. He who laughs Has not yet received The terrible news. What times are these, in which A conversation about trees is almost a […]

Church as the Sacrament of the Absent One

The church is said to be a place which makes you. “living-in-grace between brothers and sisters.” This is an expression used by Louis-Marie Chauvet, a French theologian, in his book Symbol and Sacrament. For Chauvet, a Catholic must live the three poles of scripture, sacrament, and ethics. The question he says is always, “Of what […]

“Reality Is the Sacrament of Command”

“The guarantee of the validity of the proclamation of forgiveness of sins is the sacrament. Here the general saying ‘Your sins are forgiven’ is bound up with water, wine and bread; here it comes to its own particular form of concreteness, which is only understood as the concrete here and now of the word of […]

The Crime of Thoughtlessness

The Socrates of the Platonic dialogues is himself the result of a contact. Romano Guardini wrote in his Death of Socrates: “It is perhaps Socrates who possesses in the highest degree this power of touching and moving people.” The fate of Socrates is one of the principal themes in the history of the western mind. […]

Salesians elect Maltese priest Fabio Attard as Don Bosco’s 11th successor

Pope Francis does not accept Cardinal Koch’s resignation: could continue at least until anniversary of Council of Nicea