A Century Behind
Placide Tapsoba, a 53-year-old physician, was born at home in the village of Satte outside of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, the landlocked West African country that until 1960 was the French protectorate of Upper Volta. He received his medical education at the University of Padua in Ital
What Ever Became of Solidarity?
Last August marked the 25th anniversary of the birth of the Polish nonviolent revolution known as Solidarity. On the morning of Aug. 14, 1980, a strike in the Gdansk shipyard began what eventually caused the demise of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe. The whole world watched as ordinary peopl
Bonds of Wool
On the bright morning of April 24, in a packed St. Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict XVI solemnly inaugurated his ministry as universal shepherd in a ceremony filled with symbolic gestures. For hundreds of years, the centerpiece of papal installations had been a coronation, in which the pope was c
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Robert Meza is a 40-year-old Arizona state legislator. The district he represents covers portions of central Phoenix, including both middle-class areas of old Phoenix and poor ones populated by Mexican-Americans. During his first term, he heard complaints from those Mexican-American constituents abo
Letters
Letters
Open to God
John A. Coleman, S.J., is rightly concerned by a theory of civil law that is excessively entangled with theological doctrine (Religious Liberty, 11/28). The official Catholic position on the numerous moral issues to which he refers certainly is theological doctrine. But it is also the objective teaching of human, moral reasoning. If not…
Editorials
In the Vineyard
Before the passage, on Nov. 15, of the new document from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on lay ecclesial ministry, there was debate in the bishops’ meetings over whether the term ministry should be used to refer to laypersons working on behalf of the church. The debate endeddramatical
Books
How They Shaped Our Era
The distinguished social historian William H Chafe author of significant studies of civil rights the women rsquo s movement and liberalism considers in Private Lives Public Consequences how the personal becomes political Starting with the old-fashioned conviction that individual leaders make a
A Celebration
This year rsquo s hurricanes floods and earthquakes produced such unforgettable apocalyptic scenes of devastation that they may well have altered at least temporarily the imaginative context within which we read Wendell Berry rsquo s new collection of poems many of which celebrate the serene n
The Life of a Stone
In an utterly captivating piece of historical fiction Julie Baumgold has crafted a multifaceted gem of a novel that chronicles the history of the R gent diamond the central piece of the precious stone collection of the French throne Spirited out of India in 1702 by Robert Pitt the son of Thomas
The Word
The Holy One of God
The central character in Mark rsquo s Gospel is Jesus of Nazareth who is identified as the Son of God both at the outset 1 1 and at the moment of his death 15 39 In between Mark presents Jesus as a miracle worker who heals the sick frees individuals from demonic possession and manifests…
Kingdom and Discipleship
In 2006 Year B in the Sunday Lectionary cycle the Gospel reading is usually from Mark This is the shortest and earliest Gospel written around A D 70 probably at Rome Mark was the first to provide a narrative framework or plot for the traditional sayings and stories related to Jesus He seems
News
Signs of the Times
Communist Restrictions Remain, Say CzechsThe Czech Republic bishops’ conference said it could seek international arbitration against a new religious law imposing Communist-style restrictions on church activities. We can’t understand why the state wishes to tie the church down with these
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Culture
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Scripture
Podcasts