Justice and Equality
The intractable question of allowing affirmative action to be used in the selection of students for college admission will finally be settled by the United States Supreme Court. Two cases involving plaintiffs denied admission at the University of Michigan, allegedly because they are white, will be d
No to War
Perhaps it was just coincidence that on the very day I was fuming about a syndicated column I had just read by George Weigel, I received a plea from a Catholic woman in Canada. I was going to let Weigel’s defense of pre-emptive war on Iraq pass, but Rose Marie Loria’s letter changed my m
Catholics in Political Life
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, issued on Jan. 16 a document, dated Nov. 24, 2002, entitled “Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life.” The note addresses some of the m
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Imagine a dark winter morning. A line of poorly dressed men—black, white, Latino—stretches alongside a 1920’s brick building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The building is the Holy Name Centre, and the men, most of them homeless, are waiting to take showers in the center&rsqu
Letters
Letters
Without Comment
I find it appalling that a letter in your Jan. 6 issue was published without an editor’s comment. The Rev. Alistair McKay says that the very lives of homosexual men are witness to selfishness and sterility, even those who are celibate and chaste. That is a gratuitous and totally unwarranted insult to every gay…
Editorials
Ever-Rising Hunger and Homelessness
Casting a dark look over the past year, and an even darker look at what lies ahead, the U.S. mayors’ annual Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness predicts a rise in both throughout the country—an increase that, sadly, is already well under way. Released in December, the report, which
Faith in Focus
Loving the Lady in the Mirror
It is Saturday morning, and I am standing in front of the open refrigerator, surveying the contents, while my mind hurtles into a familiar routine. I had fried fish for lunch yesterday, I reflect, and a sundae after dinner. The conclusion is swift and ruthless. Instead of French toast or a bagel wit
Books
A World Away
Alice McDermott rsquo s fiction like William Kennedy rsquo s is to be praised if for no other reason than that it transcends the tradition of Irish-American fiction established by James T Farrell back in the 1930 rsquo s Since Studs Lonigan first swaggered onto the literary stage Irish-America
Not Dead Yet
A few years ago the Episcopal bishop of Newark John Shelby Spong penned a book entitled Why Christianity Must Change or Die Spong argued that Christianity would inevitably decline unless it abandoned much of its traditional belief system A few decades hence we may regard Spong rsquo s prediction
A Sacred Trek
For an on-the-ground feel for the Holy Land and the high stakes it holds for the world rsquo s three great religions Judaism Christianity and Islam Bruce Feiler rsquo s book Walking the Bible is the next best thing to being there The journalist-author takes readers on a guided tour of the first
Film
A Liturgy of the Hours: The Hours
‘Is there any place on campus where they recite the Liturgy of the Hours?” The two undergraduates who popped into the sacristy after one of those tiny mid-morning, midweek gatherings for Eucharist in a university chapel took me by surprise. Why would two young women want to squeeze one m
Television
Reality and Morality
Each day The New York Times, like most newspapers, publishes a television listing that includes a rundown of the day’s movies. But unlike most newspapers, the Times offers its own quirky assessments of these films, with an admirable economy of words.The paper’s reviewers are generous to
The Word
No Problem!
We have many expressions for assuring each other that the mistakes we have made will not be held against us The most familiar include ldquo I forgive you rdquo ldquo Don rsquo t worry about it rdquo ldquo That rsquo s O K rdquo and more recently ldquo No problem rdquo These are simpl
Faith
Phyllis Zagano on the case for Catholic women deacons
From our archives, 2003.
News
Signs of the Times
Vatican Opposition to War Based on Morality and Political RealitiesThe Vatican’s opposition to a war against Iraq is based on political realism as well as moral arguments, a leading Vatican official said. “From the outside, we may seem like idealists, and we are, but we are also realists
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts