Thomas C. Fox

"It took me time to see what was there in David Brooks' writing. I had to set aside my own reflexes, my own labels, my own impatience. I'm glad I did," writes Tom Fox.

Jean Blake worked at National Catholic Reporter from 1974 until her retirement in 2005. Her reliability, meticulous attention to detail, organizational skill and calm demeanor made her indispensable.

Appreciation: Jesuit Fr. Greg Goethals, NCR board member and former head of Loyola High School of Los Angeles, died Nov. 24 in New York, days after having a heart attack at the end of a road trip visiting people he loved.

Released at a moment when world leaders once again rattle their nuclear sabers, Kathryn Bigelow’s "A House of Dynamite" is a cinematic alarm bell ringing in a world that has drifted back toward the edge of annihilation.

In Rome, Terrence Rynne advanced Jesus' approach to peace in the face of an existential choice facing the global community: More warheads and more tests, or a concerted international movement toward nonviolence?

In an age of numbness and forgetting, remembering our shared grief may be the truest form of resistance, writes Tom Fox, NCR editor/publisher emeritus.

Leo XIV begins his papacy with a historic opportunity to close the growing gap between what the church teaches about sex and gender, and the lived experiences and values of a majority of U.S. Catholics, writes Tom Fox.

More than 60% of Vietnam is under the age of 40, with no memory of what people here call the American war. For them, April 30 was a grand holiday, a day off from the office, not a haunting memory.

Donald Trump is "waging war not just on the living but also on history itself," writes Tom Fox. "That's why I believe he will fail."

At Corpus Christi Parish in 1997, NCR uncovered the groundbreaking ministry of Fr. James Callan, a priest whose daring vision would soon shake the foundations of ecclesiastical authority in Rochester, New York.

In an essay, retired NCR editor Tom Fox recalls his years in Vietnam, his personal connection with the Kim Phúc story, and the silence behind a powerful and defining image of the Vietnam War.

Patty McCarty, former copy editor, poetry editor and writer for the National Catholic Reporter, died just before dawn on Christmas at age 93.

Catholic theology, which had remained unchanged for centuries, experienced a significant transformation in its methodology following the Second Vatican Council, in no small way influenced by Gutiérrez.

Sept. 17 is the release of the new book outlining the 60-year history of the National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company. The foreword by NCR editor/publisher emeritus Tom Fox is available to read at NCRonline.org.

About 50 people protested outside the Kansas City National Security Campus April 15, calling for an end to nuclear weapons and criticizing a proposed expansion there. Thomas C. Fox was one of 10 people arrested. 

Sr. Marie de Paul Combo worked with national and international nonprofits on a variety of issues. But to Thomas C. Fox, "she will perhaps be remembered most for the personal care she offered others." 

Some anti-nuclear weapons activists are cautiously optimistic that the movie "Oppenheimer" could spark a greater interest in a moral examination of U.S. nuclear weapons policies, if not a larger national discussion.

Oblate Fr. Carl Kabat, one of the 1980 Plowshares Eight and a relentless anti-nuclear weapons protester whose four decades of civil disobedience drew bitter critics and many admirers, died Aug. 4 at age 88. 

Tom Cornell once described the Catholic Worker movement as a community "marked by a cooperative social order without extremes of wealth and poverty and a nonviolent approach to legitimate defense and conflict resolution."

Appreciation: For more than 30 years, Fr. Michael Gillgannon wrote for NCR from Bolivia in columns critical of U.S. foreign policy and in support of church reform efforts in the region. Gillgannon died June 19.