Tolerant Signals: The Vatican’s new insights on condoms for H.I.V. prevention
Monsignor Jacques Suaudeau of the Pontifical Council for the Family recently published “Prophylactics or Family Values? Stopping the Spread of HIV/AIDS” in the weekly edition of L’Osservatore Romano (4/19). Here we find important signals of what many have suspected all along: that
Words and Contraception: Discussion of Humanae Vitae could have been advanced greatly if the terms had been clarified from the beginning.
Although their day has long passed, the moral theology textbooks in use before the Second Vatican Council were not without a number of enduring merits. These seminary manuals, for example, recognized the need, in establishing the truth of an ethical thesis, to define all relevant terms fully and exa
Disciples and Citizens: Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., and Msgr. George Higgins are honored by their country for lifetime service.
Summer is not a good time to have significant events occur; too often they are missed by those who should know about them and would want to know about them. It is likely, for example, that even dedicated readers of the Catholic press did not see two announcements that should not go unacknowledged.Tw
Estate Tax Repeal: Myths and Misunderstandings: The supporters of estate tax repeal have done a masterful job of obfuscation.
Many members of the current Congress came to Washington with promises to repeal the federal income tax or at least replace it with a flat tax. It hasn’t happened. They and their Congressional leaders discovered that the federal income tax is too deeply rooted to be ripped out or radically chan
Making Peace After Catastrophe: An Interview With Ivo Markovic
What caused the war in the former Yugoslavia? Over 15 or 20 years ago we had a feeling that the end of Communism was coming. The whole Medjugorje event was an intimation of things to come. We were happy that Communism was going to end, but we also knew that Marshall Tito’s powerful bureaucrac
Killing and Letting Die: Intentional killing is prohibited. So is the presumption of evil intent.
The patient. At a Mercy Hospital in the Midwest, Steven Becker, a 28 year-old husband and father, lies in what is called a persistent vegetative state (P.V.S.) brought on six months ago when a cyst cut off blood in his brain. In the absence of advance directives, a hospital ethics committee recommen
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
If saints were still chosen by popular acclamation, those of us who knew Edward Skillin, the late publisher of Commonweal magazine, would be shouting his name from the rooftops. Edward stopped going into the Commonweal office only two years ago, at age 94. He first joined the staff in 1933, as a you
Letters
Letters
Degraded ProcessIt was very disheartening to read the article by John W. O’Malley, S.J., on Pius IX (8/26). Why have saints at all, if there is so much politics and deceit involved in the process of becoming a saint? Shouldn’t a saint be a role model and provide encouragement for how one
Editorials
Selling Arms
The United States once again holds first place as the world’s biggest arms sellerso noted the recent report of the Congressional Research Service, Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, delivered annually to Congress. Here is a troubling distinction indeed, given the fact that the
Theater
Blessed Uncertainty
In several serious dramas on Broadway this summer, the good (or bad) angel of uncertainty bedeviled many a leading man. Ambiguity and ambivalence plagued them in at least four plays. From Arthur Miller’s updated salesman in The Ride Down Mount Morgan to Tom Stoppard’s fortyish playwright
Poetry
The Word
A Cup of Water or Unquenchable Fire
In today rsquo s Gospel the sweet Jesus of much Christian piety seems to be having a bad day He rebuffs a disciple and his sayings echo with images of intentional drowning self-mutilation and permanent residence in Gehenna with unquenchable fire These sayings which once may have been independen
Culture
Jean Sulivan (1913-80): Rebel Prophet of God’s Kingdom
Back in the 1950’s, when I was a kid in a Jesuit high school, a novel called Mr. Blue, by Myles Connolly, was all the rage. The eponymous hero was a mystical type who combined the social activism of Dorothy Day with the contemplative reserve of Thomas Merton. In short, he made Catholicism cool
News
Signs of the Times
Protestants Respond to Vatican DocumentThe World Council of Churches warned of potential damage to ecumenical dialogue following the release of a Vatican document emphasizing the Catholic Church’s pre-eminent status among Christian denominations. What a tragedy if the witness of joint Christia
Politics
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Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts