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The author reflects on his journey of searching for truth and relaying it to the public as part of his work together with his editorial team at "America." Topics discussed include his goal as the magazine's editor in chief, improvements in the magazine under his leadership, the challenge facing the magazine as a Catholic media ministry in the U.S., and the effects of ideological partisanship on everyday life.

ADLAI E. STEVENSON WOULD NOT HAVE FARED WELL in the 2007 presidential primary debates, though he was perhaps the greatest American orator of the 20th century. 'Religious experience is highly […]

Scientists on television's medical forensic dramas can solve crime in less than an hour. With a few gadgets and some very intuitive thinking, CSI's Gil Grissom puts the whole story [...]

Almost as soon as we knew for certain that Joseph R. Biden Jr. had been elected the 46th president of the United States, the 44th president came roaring back into [...]

No doubt, the president and the U.S. Senate should have waited. No one denies that the president enjoys the constitutional prerogative to nominate someone for a vacancy on the U.S. [...]

Sixty years ago this October, a 13-car train pulled out of Union Station in Washington, D.C., headed south. It was the L.B.J. Special, named for its most important passenger, Lyndon [...]

My late philosophy professor, W. Norris Clarke, S.J., was always telling me to 'interrogate the premise' of an argument. He believed that, generally speaking, most conclusions follow logically from their [...]

As hard as it may be to believe, this autumn will mark the eighth anniversary of my editorship of this review. On Oct. 1, 2012, Twitter was only 6 years [...]

As of this morning, May 26, our British cousins are considering the fate of Dominic Cummings, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's surly advisor-enforcer and architect of last year's successful Brexit campaign. [...]

One of the few upsides of being in a prolonged quarantine is a free hour or two in each day, which would ordinarily be used for dressing or commuting or [...]

For the hour or so each day that I get out for a walk, I sometimes find it hard to believe that New York City is the center of the [...]

Earlier this month, for the first time in 111 years, America Media produced and shipped America magazine while all of our staff were working remotely. This was possible because we [...]

I am writing this column from my bedroom in New York on the seventh day of my self-quarantine. Last month I had the honor to co-lead America Media's pilgrimage to [...]

On Feb. 8, 2020, Sgt. First Class Javier Gutierrez, of San Antonio, Tex., and Sgt. First Class Antonio Rodriguez, of Las Cruces, N.M., became the latest U.S. soldiers to die [...]

Thirty-one years ago, on a cold February night, I stood on the South Lawn of the White House awaiting the president of the United States. George H. W. Bush had [...]

Living as I do in a very large glass house, I am reluctant to throw stones. In fact, I don't even permit them on my property. I say this because [...]

The March for Life, the annual gathering of pro-life activists, clergy and civic leaders, will take place in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Jan. 24. In our pro-life commitment, America is [...]

A few months ago, I attended a conference in Chicago sponsored by the Catholic Common Ground Initiative. During two days of presentations and conversations we explored the causes of polarization [...]

A few readers will be familiar with the corner of Third Avenue and East 70th Street in New York City. I think there's a Men's Wearhouse clothing store there, as [...]

Eight years ago this spring, I stood at the one intersection in Ballinamore Bridge, County Galway, Ireland. The town--a hamlet, really--is named for the ancient stone bridge that spans the [...]

I arrived in Rome on Oct. 15 after a late-night flight from New York. By coincidence, I was crossing the Atlantic Ocean on Columbus Day and, appropriately enough, in a [...]

'Something's comin', something good.' That's what the posters in the subway say. 'West Side Story,' Arthur Laurents's 1957 musical, with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, is [...]

If you are bored with endless news reports about the sundry dysfunctions of American politics, one option is to tune into the BBC and hear all about the political wreck [...]

A Pop-Tart, Jerry Seinfeld once observed, never goes stale because it was never fresh. I thought of that joke as I watched the furor generated by a new survey of [...]

Sometime in 1921 the good people of the Commonwealth of Virginia decided to present a statue to the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. That's what [...]

One of the finest hours in the history of the Catholic press occurred in the late spring of 1954, when this magazine, along with several others, published an editorial denouncing [...]

Again, the bullet. Again, the agony. On May 3, a disgruntled city employee opened fire in a municipal building in Virginia Beach, Va., killing 12 people and sending terrified co-workers [...]

I remember the size and shape of the ceiling tiles--square, with rows of holes the size of pencil erasers. I lay staring up at them for the better part of [...]

'What is received,' wrote St. Thomas Aquinas, 'is received according to the mode of the receiver.' Perhaps that is obvious, but if not, what Aquinas is saying is that what [...]

Since last summer I have taken part in about a dozen panels and programs across this country that were organized to discuss the causes and consequences of the crisis of [...]

I am writing this column from Los Angeles, where I am visiting our West Coast readers and participating in a town hall forum America is sponsoring at Loyola Marymount University. [...]

Phil Graham, the late publisher of The Washington Post, is often credited with popularizing the notion that newspapers are 'the first rough draft of history.' That was certainly true in [...]

I am writing this column on a bumpy motor coach just a few miles from the old city of Jerusalem. Our bus is headed to Bethlehem, where we will venerate [...]

Longtime readers of this column may recall that I once wrote here about the day, eight years ago, when I lost more than half of my hearing in a freak [...]

The past few months have not been easy for the editorial team at America. No one here became a Catholic journalist because they wanted to write about ecclesial scandals day [...]

Last month marked the 51st anniversary of the 'Decree on the Means of Social Communication,' ('Inter Mirifica'), promulgated by the Second Vatican Council. In that document the council fathers considered [...]

This year has been quite a journey for America, an unprecedented period of growth and change. I am very proud of the editors and staff who continue to bring you [...]

If the old saying is true, that good news doesn't sell newspapers, then it seems as if newspapers should be flying off the racks on the streets these days. Of [...]

Near as I can tell, the first substantive mention of a U.S. politician in the pages of this magazine was in the issue of July 24, 1909, when the editors [...]

Hard to believe, but a mere six inches of snow paralyzed the capital of the world on Nov. 15. While the wintry mix was unexpected, it was not a very [...]

The genius of the American founders lay in their ability to design institutions that would call forth the best in a fallen humanity while containing the worst. The separation of [...]

Brother Joe Hoover, S.J., offers something in this issue that Jesuit brothers (but not always Jesuit fathers) are well-known for: truly helpful, practical information. He avoids the cliche "I hate [...]

Funerals have a way of bringing out the best and the worst in us, for facing death often prompts us to take stock of life. In times of mourning, we [...]

It is no secret that this has been an agonizing summer for the church in the United States. Catholics across the country are still reeling from the disclosures of past [...]

Like you, I was disgusted by the Pennsylvania grand jury report on sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, released on Tuesday, Aug. 14. Unlike you, perhaps, I read the whole [...]

Displaying that frequently maddening and occasionally helpful habit of the Jesuit to begin every significant utterance by precisely defining his terms, Robert J. Hartnett, S.J., wrote these words in the [...]

'On the Mount Rushmore of stand-up comedy,' Jerry Seinfeld once observed, 'there are four faces: Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Bill Cosby and Don Rickles.' Obviously, Mr. Seinfeld was referring to [...]

Welcome back to 'America Jeopardy!'our occasional homage to America's most popular game show and everybody's favorite Catholic magazine. The game is played like the real 'Jeopardy!' except that you'll have [...]