Magazine

Human Rights CouncilThe Human Rights Council of the United Nations has finally become a reality. After months of negotiations, the U.N. General Assembly voted on March 15 to accept a resolution creating a new body to replace the Human Rights Commission, discredited because it granted membership to s

With the February election of René Préval as its new president, Haiti, poorest of countries in the Western Hemisphere, may now have some chance to move into the future with greater hope for peace and economic advancement. Although the election itself was marred by irregularities, Mr. Préval was c

Chicago Reports Criticize Handling of AbuseThe Archdiocese of Chicago released on March 20 two reports highly critical of its handling of sexual abuse by clerics. One report focuses on the handling of the cases of priests who were monitored but not immediately removed from ministry after abuse alleg

Like the Irish before them, today's immigrants are willing to work hard for a better life.

I stepped out of my small room at the Maryknoll Center House in Tokyo and turned to walk down the hall. In the dim light I could make out three figures kneeling on the floor just before the entrance to the stairwell, eyes closed:two Filipino women and one Filipino man, deep in prayer. The next morni

Forty-some years ago, at the baptism of our fourth infant son, I murmured a half-serious doubt to a fellow graduate student, Should the church really be baptizing babies without their awareness? One month later this question came back with a vengeance, when on my 28th birthday I discovered our baby

When Pope Benedict XVI was elected, and celebrated his inaugural Mass last year, I was in India. Later I visited Thailand and Laos. In all three countries the events in Rome were well covered in the local mediaperhaps less thoroughly in Laosthough only about 1 percent of the populations of these cou