(This is the last of six journal accounts of my pilgrimage to South Africa, in January 2014.) "John Dear and Archbishop Tutu, Cape Town, South Africa, Jan. 2014" The culmination…

(This is the fifth of six journal entries from my January pilgrimage to South Africa.) "John Dear standing below the open window of Nelson Mandela's prison cell, on Robben Island,…

(Note: This is the third of six articles about John’s current travels through South Africa.) We drove all day from Durban to King William’s Town, a ten hour drive through…

(Note: This is the second of six articles about John’s current travels through South Africa.) On Wed. Jan 22nd, we drove 8 hours south from Johannesburg and Soweto, close to…

We landed in Johannesburg, South Africa last Monday January 13th, after a fifteen hour flight from Atlanta. For me, it was a dream come true. After endless discussion, study, plans,…

This week, with a heavy heart, I am officially leaving the Jesuits after 32 years. After three years of discernment, I’m leaving because the Society of Jesus in the U.S.…

For the past six months, I’ve been living with the possibility that I have cancer. My doctor and then a specialist both told me quite emphatically that this was the…

With everyone else, I’ve been mourning, celebrating and reflecting these past few days on the extraordinary life of Nelson Mandela, who died on December 5th. I’m amazed at his political…

On December 7, 1993, my friends Philip Berrigan, Lynn Fredriksson, Bruce Friedrich, and I walked onto the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, North Carolina at four in the…

Thousands of us gathered this past weekend in Columbus, Georgia to pray, study, reflect, network, remember and march to the gates of the notorious “School of the Americas,” the U.S.…