Shall We Dance?
Have you heard the one about the confirmation liturgy at which a liturgical dancer presented the gifts to the bishop? After receiving them the bishop turned to the pastor and said, If she asks for your head, she can have it! This allusion to the story in Mark’s Gospel about John the Baptist an
Militant Madness
As the six-month mark passed since the World Trade Center and Pentagon atrocities, the president of the United States was greeted with heart-warming news. A Washington Post-ABC News poll, entitled America at War, informed us that 88 percent of us support the way the president is handling the campaig
Guatemala’s Violent Peace
There is a bitter joke circulating among many Guatemalans ever since the nation’s 36-year civil war ended in 1996: Beware the peace, they chide, because now the government is fighting everyone. Guatemalahalf the size of Idahohas endured some of the most unimaginable human abuses in modern hist
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
For two decades, I have taken part in a public Way of the Cross procession on Good Friday. At St. Aloysius in Washington, D.C., the procession began after dark. Moving from the church, we would walk through the surrounding low-income neighborhood, flashlights in hand, following a crossbearer and sin
Letters
Letters
Vision
Thank you for the insightful article by the Rev. Robert Kress on the priest-pastor (3/11). I have found the model of the overseer to be a useful tool for encouraging pastors to delegate responsibilities to qualified members of the parish. This frees the pastor to be about the equally important work of articulating and maintaining…
Editorials
Not the U.S. Alone
One day President George W. Bush was denying a request from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak for the U.S. administration to resume its active engagement in the search for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. A few days later he was dispatching retired Marine General Anthony Zinni to try once a
Faith in Focus
Rebuilding on Faith
At the age of 15 I was a girl who made it difficult for anyoneeven myselfto love. My upbringing has been a turbulent ride. There were struggles with anorexia, friends poorly chosen and my parents’ divorce. The only positive thing about me was something that I did not earn. I was blessed with a
Books
Looking Out for Number One
From that moment in October 1919 when his doctor cried My God the President is paralyzed until his last meeting with his cabinet in March 1921a meeting at which he could neither control his tears nor walk steadily even with his caneWoodrow Wilson rsquo s every word gesture and act was directed b
Pressing the Issues
Umberto Eco is that relatively rare phenomenon a public intellectual who plies his specific academic trade as a semiotician but also ventures beyond the ivy cover to pronounce on public issues and to play the critic He is also of course a successful novelist who in The Name of the Rose may have
This Least Society
The intent of the authors of Passionate Uncertainty Inside the American Jesuits would seem to be clear from the title Given the relatively uncomplicated prospect of gathering data from a random sample of current Jesuits and from the vast array of documents that guide the direction of the Society o
The Word
From Death’s Door to the Path of Life
Dic nobis Maria quid vidisti in via sepulchrum Christi viventis et gloriam vidi resurgentis Yes tell us again Mary what did you see on your journey I saw the tomb of one who still lives and the glory of the risen one The core of Easter faith resounds through these words from the poetic Easter
News
Signs of the Times
Bishop O’Connell Admits Abuse; Pope Accepts ResignationAfter admitting that he had sexually abused a high school seminarian more than 25 years ago, Bishop Anthony J. O’Connell of Palm Beach submitted his resignation to Pope John Paul II, and it was accepted. He said his misconduct has ha
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts