My interview with former death row inmate Ndume Olatsushani shook my faith in our justice system. But I found that my own attitude represented a larger problem.

Applying the commandment to “love my neighbor” to literature, I discovered a whole new way of relating to writers.

For Simone Weil, justice is primarily an act of paying attention, which protects the sacred cry in every human being not to be hurt.

In the face of death, Tocqueville and Pascal saw two paths toward despair—but Pope Benedict XVI offers a third way of confronting mortality.