Magazine

Just 100 years ago on Oct 24 1902 the town crier in the Guatemalan town of Quetzaltenango struggled to make himself heard over the deafening roar of the nearby volcano which had blown skyward that morning Despite the noise of rocks crashing against rooftops and the ground shaking beneath his f

Today we move out of the realm of religious testimony into the real world of history Both the first and the third readings situate Jesus within the family of David nbsp This is a family with skeletons in its closet Judah reneged on his responsibilities so his daughter-in-law Tamar tricked him

The chorus from Handel rsquo s Messiah begins with a delicate ldquo For unto us a child is born rdquo and builds to a thunderous ldquo And his name shall be called Wonderful rdquo The Gospels for the three Christmas Masses follow a similar progression Images from the first two Gospels are cap

Shortly after the start of the second millennium, St. Peter Damian wrote a long condemnatory treatise entitled The Book of Gomorrah. He demanded what is now being called zero tolerance of clerics who had engaged in homosexual behavior. In response, Pope St. Leo wrote that, while denouncing these sin

Cardinal Says Homosexuals Should Not Be OrdainedA Vatican congregation, in response to a query by a bishop, said men who are homosexuals or have homosexual tendencies should not be ordained priests. Ordaining such candidates to the priesthood would be imprudent and “very risky,” said a l

A few weeks ago the editors of America discussed their support of the ordination of celibate gay priests (11/11). Our editorial responded to the arguments against ordaining gay men and restated the central argument in favor of their ordination: the historical witness of healthy and celibate gay prie

Difficult Questions

Regarding An Isolationist View of the International Criminal Court, by Brian Farrell (11/25): I am surprised that the editors would print such an unbalanced criticism of the Bush administration’s position with respect to the Rome Statute of the International