Articles by Russell Shaw

Spontaneity that reflects good-heartedness is a highly attractive trait, but the spontaneity of self-indulgence is reckless and often cruel. Spontaneity of either kind can cause confusion and dismay. Pope Francis’ spontaneity is clearly of the […]

You know morality and common sense are both under siege when a plainly obnoxious practice is regarded with complacency and even respect. “Defining deviancy down,” the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, an astute social observer, called […]

One of the disappointments of the continuing debate over contraception is the failure of Catholics who don’t accept the Church’s teaching to acknowledge the existence of a serious and persuasive rational argument that the Church […]

Those first century Christians of Corinth must certainly have been a boisterous, troublesome lot. But maybe we should be glad that they were. After all, their acting up and acting out were the occasion for […]

Much has been made of Catholics’ negativism toward Church teaching and practice on marriage as it was reflected in survey results released by several European bishops’ conferences and some U.S. dioceses. The mostly self-selected respondents […]

I was a little shy of ten years old when I had what may have been my most spiritually profitable Lent ever. Looking back now, I can see clearly that I owed that to my […]

When Jesus said, “What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (Mt 19.6), presumably he meant it. Certainly the Catholic Church believes he did, and that conviction is the basis for its […]

“Universal destination” may sound like a fancy way of saying where we’re all headed, but this odd expression happens to be the name for a central principle of Catholic social teaching. It follows therefore that […]