Editor's Note:
John Allen appeared on the PBS show RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY for its annual look ahead at the new year.

Here's a link to a video of the program and its transcript: Look Ahead 2009:

On the Road to Peace by John Dear S.J.	Tuesday, January 6, 2009
	Vol. 3, No. 17

One day, the nations of the world will beat their swords into plowshares and study war no more, the holy prophet Isaiah wrote 2,700 years ago. On Dec. 8, hundreds of politicians and leaders from around the world gathered in Paris to launch the Global Zero campaign, a new call for the abolition of nuclear weapons. As a new year of the perilous nuclear epoch begins, I regard the gathering as a rare sign of hope. The campaign is calling for millions to join their movement and sign their petition. I did and hope you will too.

This month there will be gatherings in Washington, D.C., and in Moscow. The number of nuclear weapons keeps growing, organizers say, and the possibility of nuclear terrorism remains high. And they insist something can be done. They're demanding a comprehensive agreement to eliminate all nuclear weapons worldwide through phased and verified reductions. All of it done in 20 years.

The Peace Pulpit by Bishop Gumbleton	Christmas Eve Midnight Mass 2008
Homily Archives

We’re grateful to the children and their leaders for providing us with a visual presentation of what we heard in the gospel lesson this evening. It takes much effort through pageants like that and even more through our reflection -- careful, prayerful reflection -- to try to get a grasp of the mystery that we celebrate tonight.

I think many of us, in a sense, find it almost too easy to believe that Jesus was Son of Man and son of God.

It’s really a profound mystery and if we are to begin to plumb the depth of the mystery, perhaps we should put ourselves in the situation of those first disciples, the ones that Jesus gathered about him when he began his public life, or even before that his own parents and relatives. They knew Jesus fully in his humanness, and they had no real idea that this was God living in their midst. All that came later when Jesus was executed, tortured and put to death, but then rose from the dead, and then suddenly the disciples began to understand. There was more to Jesus than they had ever realized: This is not just the son of Mary, it’s the son of God.

All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr.
	Friday, January 2, 2008 - Vol. 8, No. 15

Editor's Note: We're posting Allen's Friday column early this week because of the New Year holiday.

'Tis the season for New Year’s resolutions, and in that spirit, I’d like to propose a resolution for Catholics everywhere: To make 2009 truly the “Year of Africa” that Pope Benedict XVI intends.

Three major events point to 2009 as a “Year of Africa” at the level of the Vatican and papal activity: Benedict’s scheduled visit in March to Cameroon and Angola; a plenary assembly of SECAM, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, to be staged in Rome in September, in order to galvanize Western interest; and a Synod for Africa, a gathering of bishops from around the world, to be held in the Vatican during October.

All Things Catholic by John L. Allen, Jr.
	Friday, December 26, 2008 - Vol. 8, No. 14

For most media outlets in the United States, there were really only two big Catholic stories in 2008: Pope Benedict XVI’s April 15-20 visit to Washington and New York, and the fate of the “Catholic vote” in the November elections.

Both, of course, were important tales to tell, and for the most part church officials have no right to complain. Saturation coverage of the pope’s trip alone probably meant the Catholic church drew more positive notice in ’08 than in most years, especially recently.

Yet inevitably, plenty of other important Catholic stories flew below the radar. To remedy that, here’s a rundown of the “Top Ten Neglected Catholic Stories of the Year.”

The Peace Pulpit by Bishop Gumbleton	Sunday, December 21, 2008
Homily Archives

As Sr. Marie mentioned at the beginning, we will be celebrating the sacrament of reconciliation at the end of this liturgy of the word, and I think if we listen very carefully and deeply to the message that we've heard from these three readings, it will help to prepare us very well for this sacrament.

There was a book written some time ago about Mother Teresa. You may remember the name of it: Something Beautiful for God. The author was describing what Mother Teresa had done in her life, and as we know that story, we understand, I think, that really this was something beautiful for God and it kind of challenges all of us to think about what we should be doing, in a sense, for God.

But if we listen to the scriptures today, we'll discover, I think, that there's a different way to relate to God rather than to think about "what I'm going to do for God" and "what kind of penance I can do, what kind of good works I can do for God." Even bringing the gifts to the altar today, we do this, in a sense, doing something for God, but it's even more important (and the lessons today remind us of this) to keep on reflecting on what God does for us -- even before we ever could do anything for God, what God does for us.