Following are NCR reader responses to recent news articles, opinion columns and theological essays with letters that have been edited for length and clarity.
'Moses the Black'
I love Yelena Popovic's "Man of God" and have been excited to see "Moses the Black" since it first came to my attention as her next project (NCR, Feb. 14, 2026). This is the only review of the film I've read. Glad it's a positive one!
I'd also like to offer a quick word of appreciation for Jose Solís' "Diane Keaton's search for heaven" (NCR, Feb. 14, 2026). "Heaven" isn't really a film that stuck with me, but now that Jose Solís has brought it back to my attention I may give it a second look.
Jose mentions many of Keaton's best roles. May I add "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" and "Manhattan"? For me, those are arguably her two finest performances. She's fearless.
I've also got to shout out Keaton's role as the Stone family matriarch in "The Family Stone". I have mixed feelings about that film overall, but no mixed feelings about Keaton's performance, or Rachel McAdams' for that matter.
JEFFREY JONES
Hamburg, New York
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Some of us are acting
I agree, as do the majority of Americans, that Trump is on a rampage to destroy America as we have known it (NCR, Feb. 13, 2026). Fr. Thomas Reese has given us an excellent summary of all that has thus far been destroyed. I can actually feel the panic in Reese's clarion call. However, in his article, he states, "And we are sitting back uninvolved unless what he does affects us personally." That almost feels judgmental when we see via our televisions that ordinary folks have taken to the streets in droves to call attention to the evils. I'm also well aware how Catholic sisters, and now, more bishops, have said, "enough," and have raised our voices and used our feet to demand an end to the madness. What happens, in many cases, may not affect us personally, but we know our people, and how so many of them are scared and in need of solace. We are doing a lot out front and behind the scenes to awaken others to these terrible times in which we find ourselves. It's a slow process, but it is happening, as we constantly apply prayer in action.
(Sr.) JODI CRETEN
Concordia, Kansas
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Trump is a symptom
To say Donald Trump is "destroying America" is to mistake the fever for the disease and to comfort ourselves with the illusion that our decay began with him (NCR, Feb. 13, 2026).
Donald Trump is not the cause — he is the revelation and manifestation of a culture long infected by its own disordered loves.
Long before Trump, we normalized staggering economic inequality, tolerated mass incarceration levels greater than any other nation that consumed minorities, rewarded media built on outrage, shrugged off economic collapses and excused institutional corruption when it benefited us. I prospered inside that culture. I voted inside it. I was silent inside it when silence was convenient.
We get the leadership our moral formation prepares us to accept. We got the Trump we deserved.
Trump did not invent the concerns that Fr. Reese decries. Trump amplifies them. Trump is not an alien infection but the incarnate revelation of cultural habits of who we are as a nation. That is far more terrifying than the man, Trump.
If we imagine elections will heal us or even stem the disease, we deceive ourselves.
The deeper work is conversion and metanoia; a national repentance for the inequities and appetites we tolerated long before our nation ever gave Trump his microphone.
Confession, not scapegoating, is where hope begins.
EDWARD SPEED
San Antonio, Texas
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