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Arts & CultureBooks
Bob on Bob
Bill McGarvey
When Columbia Records celebrated Bob Dylan rsquo s 30th anniversary in the music business in 1992 they feted him with a star-studded concert at Madison Square Garden During the long evening of music legendary artists paid homage to rock rsquo s poet laureate by performing incredible songs from th
Columns
Matters of Which We Dare Not Speak
Terry Golway
At midday on Christmas Eve, I found myself under a large white tent adjacent to St. John’s Church in downtown Newark, where I was mingling with hundreds of poor and homeless people from that impoverished and battered city. I wish I could tell you I was there out of the goodness of my heart, gi
Their Hairdresser Knows
Connie Albrizio
In 1984, my husband and I were struggling in our home in Windsor, Conn., to keep a healthy balance with five children, an aged mother and three grandchildren. I hassled town officials for a permit to open and operate a beauty salon in the basement of our home. The granting of the zoning variance was
Arts & CultureBooks
Clear-Eyed Courage
Kathy O'Connell
There is something of an unwritten rule among many writers that unless you rsquo re a celebrity or have done something truly extraordinary you shouldn rsquo t come out with a memoir until you hit at least retirement age if not beyond That rationale counts even more if you rsquo re a journalist It
The Word
Can You Hear Me Now?
Dianne Bergant
A clever advertisement for cellular phone service has found a niche in the popular consciousness The question ldquo Can you hear me now rdquo suggests that with this system reception is good anywhere in the world mdash if you are open to the call This all sounds like a vocation ad mdash not me
Editorials
Tsunami
The Editors
It struck without warning on working families in poor fishing villages and on vacationing tourists in upscale resorts. The tsunami, caused by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake 155 miles southeast of Banda Aceh, the provincial capital of Sumatra, killed more than 150,000 people and left millions homeless al
The Metaphorical Wall
Edward F. Harrington
Martin Luther King Jr. fought zealously to achieve for all the equality promised by the Declaration of Independence. His passion for justice was inspired by the Scriptures and the spirituals of his religion. The equality he fought for was an equality created first by God. Yet in the United States of
Letters
Letters

Adopted Sons

Adoption: A Life-Giving Choice, by Thomas P. Muldoon (11/29), recalled to me a poignant personal experience. Several weeks ago I attended by accident (I had wandered into the wrong room) a session on adoption at the Lesbian and Gay Center in lower Manhattan. The principal speakers were a gay couple who had arranged to adopt a baby from the woman who was carrying it. The couple would pay all the mother’s expenses, and considerably more to the adoption agency, but there was no guarantee that the mother would give the baby up for adoption in the end. As I listened to the partners speak, I was struck more and more by how much over the period of the pregnancy they had bonded with the mother in ways that probably transformed their lives as well as hers. The men are relatively well-off urban professionals; she is poor, rural, and something of a substance-abuser.

One incident in their relationship remains in my mind. She already had a 2-year-old boy, whom she feared officials might take from her. One day she called the men in desperation. The 2-year-old was sick and had been crying for four days. She was afraid to take him to an emergency room lest her own noncompliance with drug rules be discovered, but she was even more afraid that she might hit the child in desperation. She had no one else to turn to. One of the men immediately got on a plane and flew across the country to stay with the woman and care for the child until the crisis was over.

Of course it was in his self-interest to do so, but what came through so strongly during the hourlong presentation and discussion was how two gay men and a straight, single mother of totally dissimilar social, economic and cultural backgrounds broke barriers to work together in the best interests of a child. Their now-adopted son is 2 years old and looks exactly like his 4-year-old brother had looked two years previously. Undoubtedly, some gay couples should not adopt children, but on the whole, can one think of an act that is more generous, loving and, in the end, Christ-like?

Frank Oveis

Arts & CultureBooks
For the Greater Glory
Gerald R. Blaszczak
In the sort of paradox typical of the Christian story as the number of Jesuits in the United States declines it appears that more and more lay women and men find themselves deeply attracted to and committed to the Ignatian spiritual tradition mdash to such an extent that many like Ronald Modras
The Word
Movers and Shakers
Dianne Bergant
Idealistic young people are not the only people who yearn to change the world Committed social workers and politicians share that desire as do scientific and medical researchers Parents always say that they want a better world for their children Teachers too seek to equip students with the skill
News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Catholic Agencies Mobilize for ReliefAs the death toll from the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunamis soared, Pope John Paul II praised the international community for rapidly mobilizing aid efforts and said the church’s charitable agencies were doing the same. In a statement on Dec. 30, Carita
The Iraq War and Imperial Psychology
Tom Beaudoin
During the raucous postseason baseball celebrations near Fenway Park in Boston, a young woman named Victoria Snelgrove from Emerson College was killed by police, who apparently shot her in the eye with pepper spray. The Boston Herald published graphic pictures of her, and much of Bostonand the count
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
James Martin, S.J.
Something important happened a few weeks ago, though you didn’t read about it in any newspaper, see it on television or hear about it on the radio. In fact, you didn’t hear about this at all: a small brass key was handed over to my mother by her neighbor across the street. But it was big
The More Things Change...
Valerie Schultz

“Ch-ch-changes/ Pretty soon now you’re gonna get a little older.”

Reinventing Contemplative Life
Kathleen Feeley
Every Sunday before 9:00 A.M., a long line of cars snakes down a tree-lined road north of Baltimore, Md. In the Chapel of a Carmelite Monastery, a diverse congregation gathers for liturgy. Retired people, women religious, former priests and sisters, young adults with little children and some teenage
The Word
Follow the Leader
Dianne Bergant
There are various ways of playing follow-the-leader In this simple child rsquo s game the challenge is Can you do what I do Since leaders seldom give up being leader this can become the game You rsquo re not as good as I am At other times follow-the-leader is more serious than childish compe
Letters
Letters

Memory Comes Back

Many thanks to Patricia Kossmann for calling attention to the 25th anniversary of the death of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen on Dec. 9 of this year.

During the seasons of his Life Is Worth Living television series, the bishop would periodically decamp across the Hudson for a few days. His objective? The so-called bishop’s suite in St. Michael’s Monastery of the Passionists in Union City, N.J.

As seminarians, we took turns bringing Bishop Sheen a mid-morning snack of coffee, or mid-afternoon tea with a Danish or cookies. We all noticed the small piles of lined yellow foolscap on the floor along the walls. One classmate finally asked: Bishop, are those the drafts of your future talks? The answer: No, Confrater, each pile has drafts of separate paragraphs for the one talk I’m working on at the time.

As I begin to write a new homily, that memory comes back and gives me the courage to keep trying. Maybe it’s the same for my good classmates.

(Most Rev.) Norbert M. Dorsey, C.P.

Arts & CultureBooks
Dancing for Identity
Leo J. O’Donovan, S.J.
The one story that everybody in the theater tells about Jerome Robbins has him angrily giving notes to his dancers in either ldquo West Side Story rdquo or ldquo Billion Dollar Baby rdquo while backing away and then falling into the orchestra pit And no one says a word or makes a move to hel
Editorials
Hope for a New Year
The Editors
The Great Seal of the United States, reproduced on the dollar bill, has a mediocre design but an upbeat message. One side shows a bald eagle grasping in its talons arrows of war and an olive branch of peace. The reverse side pictures an unfinished pyramid surmounted by a great eye that represents di
Christian Spirituality: A New Model
Allan Figueroa Deck
Pablo and Dolores García were the fourth couple to approach me after the parish mission to ask where they could find a copy of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises in Spanish. I had to explain that the little manual was not meant to be read like a normal book, but rather was to be use