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Arts & CultureBooks
A Theologian in Verse
Robert P. Imbelli
In his encyclical Deus Caritas Est Pope Benedict XVI explored the relationship between eros and agape desire and self-gift with pastoral sensitivity and theological depth A few days before publishing the encyclical the pope himself gave an important indication of his intent He sought he said
Current Comment
Current Comment
The Editors
The Court RulesThe latest U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the prohibition on partial-birth abortion is a healthy correction of an earlier court’s overreach in establishing a legal right to abortion. In his opinion for the majority in Gonzales v. Carhart, Justice Anthony Kennedy argued th
The Word
Openness to the Holy Spirit
Daniel J. Harrington
In the final weeks of the Easter season the Gospel readings for the Sundays and weekdays are taken almost entirely from Jesus rsquo farewell discourse in John 13 ndash 17 In saying goodbye to his disciples Jesus reflects on what their lives will be like when he will no longer be with them as he
Columns
Another Insider's Game
Terry Golway
As most parents know all too well, financing a college education today is not for the faint of heart. The cost of a degree from an elite private or Catholic college long ago crossed the six-figure mark for tuition, room and board, and will soon break $200,000, if it hasn’t already.
Advice for College Grads
Jim McDermott

Graduation from college brings many questions: Who am I? What do I want to do? What kind of person do I want to be? How do I get there? Finding worthwhile answers is not easy.

Theater
The Shore We Seek
Leo J. ODonovan
The first stage picture of "Voyage," the initial play in Tom Stoppard’s thrilling trilogy The Coast of Utopia, must rank among the most memorable ever seen on a stage. Out of the darkness, in midair, a man appears sitting in a slowly revolving chair, absorbed in thought as the chair
Arts & CultureBooks
Off to a Distant Land
John T. McGreevy
In a few months we will reach the 70th anniversary of the publication of Gilbert Garraghan 8217 s three-volume history of the Jesuits in the 19th-century Midwest Don 8217 t have a copy beside your night table Join the club I teach American history for a living I write about the history of Catho
Columns
The Deepest Desire
Margaret Silf
Desire has a bad press. Most of us, at least those beyond a certain age, have grown up thinking that anything we desire is probably something we shouldn’t even be thinking about, and whatever God’s will might be, it is surely diametrically opposed to what we actually want.
The Stories We Tell
Jeremy V. Cruz
I sat in reflective silence as my sister drove us from the movie theater to our parents’ house. We had just watched The Pursuit of Happyness, Will Smith’s film based upon the true story of Chris Gardner, who lifts himself and his son out of poverty and homelessness and becomes a successf
Letters
Letters

Joyful Evangelizers

The reflection by James Martin, S.J., on joy in the Christian life appeared most appropriately in your Easter issue (4/2); overwhelming joy was the Easter experience of Jesus’ first disciples. Their encounter with their risen Lord transformed them into dynamic evangelizers. I am convinced of the intimate connection between Christian joy and effective evangelization. If people today do not receive the Christian message from joyful evangelizers, I doubt they will receive it at all. I say this based on 37 years of foreign missionary service in Bangladesh and the Philippines.

In 1975 Pope Paul VI wrote two apostolic exhortations for the jubilee year. His well-known Evangelii Nuntiandi (Evangelization Today) is probably the best document he ever wrote; his little-known Gaudete in Domino (Christian Joy) was written for Pentecost 1975. Paul VI affirms the evangelization-joy dynamic. He asserts that the Gospel must be proclaimed by witness...the witness of an authentic Christian life; and this task must be done with ever increasing love, zeal and joy. The pope identifies various obstacles that impede evangelization; the most serious is lack of joy and hope.

At the conclusion of GD, Paul VI writes about the joy of being Christian and he notes that it would be very strange if this Good News, which evokes the alleluia of the Church, did not give us the look of those who are saved.

In the final exhortatory section of EN, Paul VI speaks personally to all evangelizers: Let us preserve the delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing, even when it is in tears that we must sow.... May the world of our time...receive the Good News, not from evangelizers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervor, who have received the joy of Christ.

Indeed, Father Martin got it right: Christian joyand joyful evangelizersare the most effective witnesses of the Gospel. They are the most infallible sign that Jesus lives!

James H. Kroeger, M.M.

Arts & CultureBooks
Turning Up the Heat
Kristin Shrader-Frechette
Most people realize that over the last 40 years the tobacco industry has spent millions of dollars to mislead the public about the dangers of smoking People are less likely to know that oil companies are doing something similar ExxonMobil has spent 16 million to fund a web of organizations charg
Arts & CultureBooks
A Winning Combination
Mary A. McCay
As the poet Joan Murray points out in her introduction to this stellar collection the glitteringly self-deprecating Pushcart Prize has been bringing extraordinary literary talents to a broad readership for 30 years This volume is the third in a series of prize-winning Best of the Best volumes from
Editorials
Peace in Northern Ireland
The Editors
The promise of a new era of peace in Northern Ireland will be realized on May 8, when the 108 members of the Northern Ireland Assembly meet and elect a 12-member administration. It is to be led by Ian Paisley, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, the largest Protestant party in Northern Irel
Why We Must Withdraw From Iraq
Robert W. McElroy
The United States has reached a new chapter in its intervention in the Middle East, as the enormous obstacles to achieving peace are being recognized more clearly with every passing day. We have lost our way in Iraq—strategically, militarily and morally—and we need to forge a pathway for
Faith in Focus
Liberal Catholicism
Maggie Kast
A friend recently said to me, I presume you regard yourself as a liberal Catholic. In response, I asked myself what kind of Catholic I am, and what is liberal? I came into the church 25 years ago at mid-life, without previous religious faith, practice or upbringing. My parents had been secular anthr
The Word
Love Is the Answer
Daniel J. Harrington
There are two great questions in the Easter season How could the community formed by the earthly Jesus carry on without his physical presence And what can the church of the 21st century learn from the earliest Christian communities Last Sunday rsquo s reading from John rsquo s Gospel suggested th
Arts & CultureBooks
Behind the Serene Public Image'
Sally Cunneen
Assigned to read Thomas Hardy 8217 s The Return of the Native in high school I was fascinated by its evocation of our pagan agricultural past Reading Jude the Obscure recently however I suffered all the way through Hardy 8217 s determined destruction of hope in the life of his stonemason hero
Arts & CultureBooks
Long Live Matthieu
Tom Deignan
In 2002 Pete Hamill scored a bestseller with his novel Forever which told the story of an Irish immigrant granted the gift of eternal lifeso long as he never leaves the island of Manhattan Meanwhile next year Brad Pitt will star in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button based on an F Scott Fitzg
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Patricia A. Kossmann
"One a of the lessons we all must learn if we are to survive spiritually and psychologically is how to leave behind what is unnecessary and travel light. Wise counsel, this, from Robert J. Wicks, a professor at Loyola College of Maryland and the author of some 40 general and professional books. His
News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Lebanese Christians Flee Growing Fundamentalism Christians are fleeing Lebanon to escape an ongoing political and economic crisis amid signs that Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise in the country. Forty-three percent of Maronite Catholicsthe largest of the country’s 12 Christian denominati