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Dear Friends,                In a recent interview with Publisher’s Weekly I spoke of the ways the Orbis Books program seeks to respond to the challenges of our time, especially in the area of social justice. But I also said, “We know that readers are concerned with the world and want to engage in ways that are spiritually and morally healthy. Facing these perennial issues, they are asking themselves, How do I hold on to my humanity? How do I not get ground down by all that is happening? How do I sustain myself for...

Dear Friends, Much of the world is currently experiencing fear and trauma. Bishop Mariann Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, DC spoke for many of them when she addressed the president at a National Prayer Service with a plea for mercy “upon the people in our country who are scared now.” Many Catholics, including the U.S. bishops, have joined her in speaking on behalf of immigrants and refugees, the poor, and those in marginalized communities.            For many Catholics the work of contending with trauma and moral injury continues in our own house. The impacts of clergy sex abuse are still...

Dear Friends,           Black History Month this year coincides with efforts by the new administration to erase all government programs and references to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” claiming that they foster “illegal and immoral” racial discrimination--that is, discrimination against White people. The pretense is that these policies actually mark the realization of Martin Luther King’s “dream” of a country where all people will be judged “by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin.”           In my recent conversation with Juan Floyd-Thomas about his new book Critical Race Theology, we talked about...

Dear Friends,              As we begin this new year I think of the blessings Jesus introduced in his Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the poor in spirit. . . Blessed are those who mourn . . . Blessed are the meek, the merciful, the pure of heart, the peacemaker, those persecuted for the sake of righteousness. . . .” Pope Francis has called the Beatitudes a Christian’s identity card. And in this time, our time, it is important to realize the immensely counter-cultural import of these qualities in the context of the Roman Empire:...

Dear Friends, The season of Advent renews our hope for the reign of God’s peace and love, signified by the birth of a baby in Bethlehem. But almost immediately, Christmas is followed by the feast of Holy Innocents, when King Herod tried to extinguish that hope in its cradle. Those innocents represent all those who die in the dream of a different possible world, hoping but never knowing that their redeemer lives. How are we to read the story of Jesus through the lens of our current reality—significantly, in Bethlehem itself, but also closer to home? It is an ongoing...