Is God One of Us?
Barbara Hall, the creator and executive producer of the CBS television series “Joan of Arcadia,” may have a wider audience than any contemporary American theologian. Most theologians don’t talk about God any more. Sex, race, gender, politics, secularity or whatever are more importa
Iraq’s Urgent Need for A Reconciliation Ethic
Christian ethicists are far more reticent about how the United States should proceed in an Iraq exploding with car bombs than they were about whether to launch the present war in the first place. Their reserve is unsurprising, for both just war ethicists and pacifists have much to say about whether
The Search for Lebanon
Even when the streets of downtown Beirut were the exclusive preserve of those demanding a Syrian withdrawal, I was never optimistic about Lebanon’s so-called Cedar Revolutionbut hopeful, yes. Last month’s assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a Sunni, gave the pre
A Passion for Unity
Yves-Marie Congar, O.P., was the 20th century’s leading Catholic ecumenical theologian and one of the most influential contributors to the Second Vatican Council. Pope John Paul recognized his outstanding service to the church when he named him a cardinal not long before he died in 1995 at the
Champion of Conscience
The death of Josef Fuchs, S.J., on March 9 in Cologne, Germany, marks the end of a period of enormous transition in moral theology. Along with Bernard Häring of the Alfonsianum University (d. 1998) and Louis Janssens of Louvain University (d. 2001), the Gregorian University’s Fuchs provided t
Letters
Letters
Archbishop Replies
An advertisement placed by Voice of the Faithful in the March 14 issue of America erroneously stated that I had dismissed a lay board responsible for reviewing cases of clergy child sexual abuse.
Our Case Review Board was not dismissed. It had concluded its work according to guidelines set out in the Charter for…
Editorials
Genesis and Darwinism
In a message to the Pontifical Academy of Science in October 1996, Pope John Paul II said, New knowledge leads to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. That is to say, this theory is not a guess, but the established framework for understanding the origin of species fr
Books
The Conjurer
The Rough Rider the Bull Moose the president who used his office as a bully pulpit the man who carried the big stick the asthmatic child who spent mornings on horseback the hunter of lions who nevertheless spared one teddy bearwhat reader cannot already limn the life of the 26th American presid
Willie at War
It has been 90 years since the beginning of the Great War in 1914 longer than the time between Fort Sumter and Pearl Harbor To write about it now is to do history not passionate political attack of the kind Erich Maria Remarque launched in his All Quiet on the Western Front when the war…
Thus Always to Tyrants’
Sarah Vowell whose idiosyncratic voice in both senses is familiar to listeners of National Public Radio rsquo s This American Life expended a considerable amount of effort trekking to places associated with events of national tragedynamely the murders of Presidents Lincoln Garfield and McKinle
Confronting a Culture of Fear
In the wake of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean as the death toll quickly climbed into the tens of thousands many religious leaders and op-ed pundits focused on a single question Where was God For nonbelievers the catastrophe while tragic was easily explainable Science tells us that a violent
Blooming Where Planted
David Plante was born in Providence R I in 1940 the next to last of the seven sons of Anaclet and Albina Plante French-Canadians who were called somewhat sneeringly in Yankee New England Canucks Anaclet was a stoical taciturn quarter-breed Blackfoot Indian who worked humbly for a manufactu
The Word
I’ll Know It When I See It
Many of us take great pride in our ability to recognize faces Or it may happen that we are on a street or highway and we come upon a particular turn in the road or a distinctive landmark and we realize that we have been in that place before At times like these floods of…
Follow the Leader!
The Fourth Sunday of Easter has traditionally been known as Good Shepherd Sunday. The particular focus today is on leadership Whose leadership do we follow?
Faith
Follow the Leader!
The Fourth Sunday of Easter has traditionally been known as Good Shepherd Sunday. The particular focus today is on leadership Whose leadership do we follow?
Genesis and Darwinism
In a message to the Pontifical Academy of Science in October 1996, Pope John Paul II said, New knowledge leads to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. That is to say, this theory is not a guess, but the established framework for understanding the origin of species fr
News
Annulment
Two articles about the Catholic Church’s process for granting an annulment of marriage were recently published in America: The Annulment, by Joseph A. Califano Jr. (11/15/04), and The Anguish of Annulment (2/28/05). We publish here a representative sampling of the letters prompted by these art
Signs of the Times
Federal Judge Denies Parents’ Bid to Reinsert Schiavo’s Feeding TubeAfter a Federal judge refused a request by the parents of Terri Schindler Schiavo to have her feeding tube reinserted, church officials condemned the decision and said that the brain-damaged woman must be given nutrition
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