Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Of Many Things
December 03, 2001
In the summer of 1219, Francis of Assisi traveled to Egypt with the hope of converting the Saracens from Islam to Christianity. He stayed with some crusaders, who told him his mission was impossible and could easily cost him his life. Francis ignored the warnings and managed to secure an audience wi
June 04, 2001
More than 80 years ago, the British historian Lytton Strachey (1880-1932) made a name for himself by writing short biographies that debunked their subjects, but did so with elegance and wit. He combined the style of a minor Evelyn Waugh with the slant of a demolition expert like Robert Caro, whose s
Of Many Things
February 05, 2001
Avery Dulles became a Roman Catholic in 1940 when he was a first-year student at the Harvard Law School. Two years later, he was commissioned as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy and served on submarine chasers and aircraft carriers patrolling Atlantic and Mediterranean waters. For his liaiso
Of Many Things
October 21, 2000
Maine’s secretary of state sponsors a Web page offering lively information about this largest of the six New England states. Maine has an area of 33,215 square miles that include 17 million acres of forest and 31,000 acres of blueberries. It has a human population of 1.2 million and a moose po
Of Many Things
June 03, 2000
Of course, there were differences of opinion about "Jesus," the two-part movie shown on the CBS-TV network in mid-May. There were intense differences of opinion about the film's hero during his earthly lifetime, and there have been radical differences of opinion ever since he died on a
March 18, 2000
Bob Chase, president of the country’s largest teachers’ union, the 2.3 million-member National Education Association, has nothing good to say about school vouchers.Mr. Chase occasionally writes brief essays that the N.E.A. inserts as paid advertisements in selected newspapers. In one tha
Faith Vantage Point
May 13, 1995
Saints are known for their holiness. That doesn’t mean they were easy to get along with.
May 21, 1994
When Pope John Paul II slipped in his bathtub on the evening of April 28, he fractured more than his right thighbone. The papal itinerary for the next several months was also pretty well shattered, and before it can be rescheduled many disappointed people will be obliged to revise their own
October 26, 1985
Myths. "Jesuit education" is a familiar couplet like "Roman Empire" or "Viennese waltz." Most people associate Jesuits with education, although not all they have heard about this association is so. From time to time, for instance, a journalist or a student writing a term paper will call
October 23, 1982
On her feast day, a reflection on the life and writings of St. Teresa of Avila