Charles Hawkins

(The second reflection in a series) If Paul opened the door, the early Church Fathers walked through it. The first Christians did not inherit a world in which the choice was between reading the Bible or reading Homer. They inherited a culture in which Homer was the beginning of nearly every education. Greek children learned to read from Homer. They memorized Homer. They absorbed their moral imagination through Homer. The question, therefore, was unavoidable. What should Christians do with this inheritance? Some argued that pagan literature should simply be abandoned. After all, Homer's world is filled with many gods, heroic vengeance, and values that often stand in sharp tension with the gospel. Others recognized that rejecting everything Greek would also mean rejecting much of the language and culture through which the Christian faith itself was being proclaimed. The Church gradually discovered a third way. Justin Martyr gave it one of its most memorable expressions. He argued tha...

(Part 1 in a multipart series on Nolan’s The Odyssey) When the lights came up after Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey , I found myself thinking about how some might be tempted to dismiss Homer because he is a pagan poet whose world is populated by quarrelsome gods and heroic violence, or tempted merely to celebrate him as one of the greatest literary geniuses of all time, leaving much that might be noted unexamined. Neither response to Homer has ever satisfied the Christian tradition. From the beginning, Christians have lived in conversation with cultures they did not create. The first believers inherited the Scriptures of Israel, but they also lived in the cities of the Roman Empire, spoke Greek, read Greek authors, and educated their children in the classics—either intentionally or unintentionally. They could, therefore, neither ignore that world nor simply baptize it. So they learned another way. They listened. They asked where truth might already be shimmering beneath the surface of ...

  Prayers of the People   The people stand or kneel.    The silences are kept long enough for the people to offer their own prayers, either silently or aloud.   Let us pray for the Church and for the world God loves.   I ask your prayers for the Church throughout the world; for our bishops; for all ministers and people; and for this congregation. Pray that, led by the Spirit and freed from fear, we may live as children of God and bear faithful witness to our Redeemer.   Silence   I ask your prayers for the nations of the world and for all who exercise authority. Pray that rulers may turn from arrogance and violence, govern with justice and compassion, and remember that God alone is sovereign.   Silence   I ask your prayers for peace and for the welfare of the world; for people divided by hatred, warfare, or suspicion; and for all whose lives are threatened by the judgments of others. Pray for patience in a world where wheat and weeds gro...

James Traub's recent review in The Atlantic of David S. Reynolds's Two Ships asks a question that reaches far beyond a single history book. Are Americans one people, or have we always been two nations occupying the same territory? The image is compelling. Reynolds argues that from the beginning America has been carried by two vessels: one devoted to liberty, constitutional government, and equality; the other shaped by slavery, racial hierarchy, and domination. The two ships sail the same waters but pursue different destinations. It is an arresting metaphor. Like all good metaphors, it does more than illustrate an argument. It changes what we see. But perhaps the most illuminating question is not whether Reynolds is right. It is why this metaphor has become so persuasive. Over the past generation, Americans have increasingly argued about the nation's "true" story. Samuel Huntington described America as fundamentally an Anglo-Protestant nation. The 1619 Project as...

A few years ago, I asked an artificial intelligence program to describe what it could not do. It answered in the first person. “I am not conscious,” it explained. “I do not suffer. I do not have a continuing personal memory. I cannot accept moral responsibility.” The answer was accurate, but also strange. Here was a machine using the word “I” to explain that there was no real “I” behind its words. That strangeness now stands at the center of a growing public debate. Anthropic recently reported finding activity inside its Claude language model that resembles a “mental workspace.” The system seemed to gather information related to a task, hold some of it briefly, and use it to form a response. Because one major theory connects this kind of workspace with human consciousness, some have wondered whether Claude may show early signs of an inner life. Neuroscientist Anil Seth is not convinced. In a recent [Guardian essay](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/15/ai-consciousness-...

​ I recently read a report in the National Catholic Reporter about Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. Opening the dicastery’s plenary session, Fernández warned that anyone can now publish an opinion online and condemn others “as if speaking ex cathedra ,” even when the writer has studied little theology. ( National Catholic Reporter ⁠) It is an irresistible line. Anyone who has spent much time reading religious commentary online will recognize the phenomenon. The internet has produced an astonishing number of self-appointed guardians of orthodoxy. They possess no ecclesiastical office, sometimes little theological education, and almost never any pastoral responsibility for the people they judge. Yet they speak with a certainty that would make an ecumenical council appear indecisive. Fernández’s complaint could easily be dismissed as the irritation of an institutional authority confronted by unofficial critics. He has, ...