Can great artists be holy Should they even try to be holy This question has troubled many painters poets and composers for centuries Tormented by the world rsquo s imperfections uniquely susceptible to the sensual and necessarily hardened to criticism artists may be more vulnerable to particula

Some people would characterize the past five years of the Bush administration as inconceivably distasteful and disastrous For others the administration rsquo s policies are long awaited perfectly logical and admired Why such a discrepancy In American Theocracy which reads like a cross between a

In his justly celebrated How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love With Poetry 1999 Edward Hirsch becomes both teacher and enthusiast We encounter a man at once passionate and informed his writing as infectious as it is instructive In his new release Poet rsquo s Choice Hirsch remains much the sam

There is a master of American letters working in our midst today of whom not many readers are aware For more than 23 years the novelist Stephen Wright has written uncompromisingly and astutely about America in meticulously crafted prose and witty realistic dialogue that reflects the spiritual wan

One of my strongest primal memories is of the Knights of Columbus As far back as I can remember they were as present and as taken-for-granted as the Austin Boulevard Bus the Lake Street L and Pedersen rsquo s Ice Cream Store Commodore Barry Council of which my father was a member and once Grand

While reading Maureen Fitzgerald rsquo s doctoral dissertation a few years ago I was introduced to Sister Mary Irene Fitzgibbon an Irish-born Sister of Charity whose work on behalf of poor working women in New York City had become legendary She established the Foundling Asylum in 1869 and supervi