Joan Chittister's column has been a popular feature of National Catholic Reporter for many years.
From Where I Stand: Few if any young people will look consciously for role models of decency in political figures, least of all, in a divisive, indecent, demeaning presidency whose insulting language, sexism and racism grind American ideals to dust.
From Where I Stand - Since no one else is doing anything about stemming U.S. gun violence, the young people have taken it upon themselves. They lay the responsibility directly at the feet of the politicians who define themselves as the guardians of the democracy.
From Where I Stand - There was a time in life when I wanted things done and wanted them done now. I still want things done now but over the course of the years, I discovered that, at least where the church is concerned, I was looking for action in the wrong places.
From Where I Stand Preview: President Donald Trump's insult of black countries touches our integrity as a nation. I believe that if we do not as a people say "Enough!" now, we will regret it for years.
In her keynote address at the Fourth International Oblate Congress in Rome, Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister spoke about the charism of Benedictinism, the way forward for monastics and Oblates, and how both need each other. According to Sister Joan: "Life is the world’s greatest spiritual director. And each of us learns from it. Each of us — lay as well as religious — carries within us a piece of the truth — but only a piece."
From Where I Stand - There's a pall hanging over the country these days. And it's everywhere. It colors every news article, of course. So, should we just give in?
From Where I Stand - In a political world that is normalizing the irrational more and more every day, our obligation is not to be like those who would secure themselves by making others insecure.
From Where I Stand - Of all the election cycles I've ever been through, this one has be the strangest of them all. The old ones rested on policy differences. But not this time. This time the national concerns are more about who's temperamentally balanced and who isn't; who's honest and who isn't; who's likeable and who isn't; who's competent and who isn't.
The human rights forum at the Carter Center this week brought together people from around the globe who had invested their lives in the welfare of people they did not know.
In late July, while John Kerry sat across a table in Paris from Mohammed Zarif, chief Iranian negotiator for the Iranian-U.S. nuclear treaty, I and six other Americans from the Global Peace Initiative of Women sat across tables from some of the major religious figures in Iran. We were in Qom, the Vatican of Shia Islam.
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