Magazine

The last piece of mail I opened that Friday afternoon was a large white envelope bearing the return address of the Diocese of Cleveland. Having already received a memorandum about this mailing, I tore into the rectangular package with curiosity. Inside, I found the newly released Standards of Conduc

The Just War Theory is a centuries-old set of principles that provide objective norms for the moral evaluation of war. With each new technological advance or new kind of warfare the just war theory has evolved in order to remain relevant. In the wake of the most recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanis

Cramped into a mobile home, we were standing in a circle holding hands, each person uttering a brief prayer of thanksgiving in Spanish. Three were Mexicans, three from Colombia, two from Peru, one from Honduras, one from Panama and myself, the lone “gringo” of the bunch. What made this p

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, published by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, is a remarkable summary of Catholic social teaching. Those who were disappointed with the abbreviated treatment of Catholic social thought in the Catechism of the Catholic Church will be d

I am a wealthy woman. I don’t have as much as some, but I know that I have far more than I need. Compared with most human beings on this planet and even compared with most Americans, I am rich. This fact troubled me for a long time. I was aware of the violence of poverty. I heard what Jesus sa

In the catholic understanding, a saint is somebody who is all-out for God, full of faith, hope and love. Such a person, decidedly, was the Chilean Jesuit Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga. Hurtado, born in 1901, was four years old when his father died, leaving his mother saddled with heavy debts and forced t

Insights and Answers

Bishop Donald W. Trautman’s challenging article, Our Daily Bread (10/3), raised many concerns about the function of the World Synod of Bishops in pursuit of its mission. I urge him, once the current meeting of the synod is over, to give us the benefit of his