NCR Connections

Executive editor Heidi Schlumpf aims to help readers understand how recent news stories fit together. NCR Connections will provide guideposts and markers to help lead readers through key issues and stories.

Worshippers wearing protective masks because of COVID-19 receive ashes sprinkled over their heads during Ash Wednesday Mass at the National Shrine of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in Manila, Philippines, Feb. 26, 2020. (CNS/Reuters/Eloisa Lopez)

Let's give up culture war infighting for Lent

by Heidi Schlumpf

Feb 16, 2021

NCR Connections: Like everything else in this pandemic year, Ash Wednesday will not be the same.

President Joe Biden and family members enter Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Washington Jan. 24. (CNS/Reuters/Erin Scott)

Liberal Catholicism: We've been here all along

by Heidi Schlumpf

Jan 28, 2021

NCR Connections: When you see opinion polls, you can't say that U.S. Catholics who are progressive have been "suppressed." But now one of the most public faces of Catholicism in this country will match those majorities.

A President Donald Trump supporter breaks a window at the U.S. Capitol in Washington Jan. 6, 2021. (CNS/Reuters/Leah Millis)

How Catholic media should cover Biden

by Heidi Schlumpf

Jan 14, 2021

NCR Connections: As we move into a presidential administration that does not disparage — or openly threaten — the media, our job remains to tell the truth, uncover what may be hidden and hold the powerful accountable.

A used protective face mask litters the North Lawn Driveway at the White House in Washington Nov. 4. (CNS/Reuters/Tom Brenner)

2020: A year like no other

by Heidi Schlumpf

Dec 17, 2020

NCR Connections: Coronavirus, the politicizing of coronavirus, heightened focus on police brutality, Black Lives Matter reaching flood stage, Pope Francis' Fratelli Tutti, an election for "the soul of the nation" — we look back on a year of sacrifice and reckoning.

Columns ›

Let's give up culture war infighting for Lent

Liberal Catholicism: We've been here all along

How Catholic media should cover Biden

2020: A year like no other

The media is not the church's enemy

Setting the record straight on NCR and McCarrick coverage

A lifelong example of the kind of journalist we need

Asking for a friend: Can a Catholic vote for Biden?

Catholic Church must reject its anti-Black misogyny

The church needs 'notorious' women willing to dissent, too

Be not afraid: Is safety a Christian virtue?

First, lasts and heeding the coronavirus realities

A fix for your late-arriving NCR — and a welcome to a new staffer

Disagreeing without being disagreeable

AOC is the future of the Catholic Church

The problems with papal politicking

Paying the price for anti-racism work

The debate about debate

White people, let's do our homework

Editorial independence in Catholic media is critical

When church leaders sound like presidential apologists

A good place, a strange moment

Coping with the pandemic's effect at NCR

Join us for a virtual Triduum observance

Pages