Pope Francis apologized to Canadian Indigenous peoples on Friday for the Roman Catholic Church's role in residential schools that sought to erase their cultures and where many children suffered abuse.
March 31 marks the annual International Transgender Day of Visibility. I will confess that I only recently became aware of this day, which is “dedicated to celebrating the accomplishments of transgender and gender nonconforming people while raising awareness of the work that still needs to be done to achieve trans justice,” as GLSEN, an organization that advocates for LGTBQ issues in K-12 education, puts it.
The Bulgarian town where director Ivaylo Hristov’s latest film takes place is never named, but the movie’s title offers a suitable stand-in: Fear. This coastal village on Turkey’s border reeks of terror, but not the kind one might expect.
The now twice weekly funerals of soldiers, which take place at the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in the center of the city, are one of the few reminders of war.
As Hebrew Bible scholar Walter Brueggemann has reflected, the imprecatory psalms put words to our thirst for vengeance. In praying these psalms, we process our rage and give our violent impulses over to God. “O God, break the teeth in their mouths,” one psalmist prays; “let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime” (Psalm 58:6, 8). I’m all for this kind of prayer. I’m all for praying the entire range of the psalms — even the ones that sometimes make us uncomfortable or aren’t necessarily welcome in church. And if there is any occasion for an imprecatory psalm, certainly Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in all of its brutality and sheer horror, is one of those occasions.
Survivors of Canada’s residential schools on Monday asked Pope Francis for unfettered access to church records on the institutions where Indigenous children were abused and their culture denied.
March is the most underrated month. In it, winter makes room for spring in a million miraculous ways. These changes are imperceptible unless you slow down and pay attention.
Earlier this week, I attended the confirmation hearing of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Outside, spring in the nation’s capital was in full bloom, with cherry blossoms beginning to dot the landscape — signs of hope, growth, and new beginnings echoed in the liberative invitation of many faith traditions’ spring holidays, including Passover, Easter, and Holi. Inside at the hearing, the mood was equally hopeful: Jackson's nomination offers a new beginning — a new direction for the court and our country, and a hope for the future.
In Maus, Jews are drawn as anthropomorphic mice, while Nazis are portrayed as cats. The book chronicles the Spiegelman family’s attempts to hide from the Nazis, showing the harshness of life in the ghetto, the desperation of parents attempting to protect their children, and the cruelty of Jews in concentration camps. It even addresses the lingering impacts of the generational trauma of the Holocaust on the Spiegelman family in a way that can only be expressed by someone who experienced it firsthand. The story it tells is dark and disturbing, but the story of Spiegelman’s father and the story of the Holocaust requires such a telling.
Using theologically diverse Christian figures ranging from Billy Graham to Mister Rogers, Mayfield offers examples of what insecure attachment to God can look or feel like, including feelings of doubt, shame, or distancing. Leaning heavily on attachment theory — a theory that examines relationships and the nature of the bonds between people, especially between caregivers and children, romantic partners, and close platonic relationships — Mayfield provides a relatable guide to assist folks with identifying the deeper questions and beliefs behind some of our spiritual frameworks.