"How’s it going?" I ask the college student passing my desk at the library. "Same old, same old," she sighs, then pauses. "But that can be a good thing." What a joy to see such wisdom in a young person, I think to myself. It took me so long to realize the blessing

St. John Chrysostom once warned: Whoever is not angry when there is cause for anger sins. The 25 Catholics who gathered in the basement of St. John the Evangelist Church in Wellesley, Mass., on a Monday night in January 2002 were angry indeedangry and embarrassed because of the sexual abuse of so ma

Randy Newman has a tune called God rsquo s Song That rsquo s Why I Love Mankind that can send a shiver down the spine of all believers even those who believe we would be better off without belief In it a malicious God sits in his heaven world-weary and sarcastic Man means less to me he says

In the contest for the dullest book published by the federal government, the annual budget would appear in almost everyone’s top 10 list. Most Americans are numerically challenged, except when it comes to sports statistics. If presidential candidates devoted an evening to debating the federal

The United States today is indisputably the most powerful nation in the world militarily, economically and culturally. Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that fact has been elevated to the level of a doctrine: the United States must exercise its “preponderance,” its superior

When the annual March for Life was held in Washington, D.C., last month to protest the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, (Jan. 22, 1973), the marchers were adamant and upbeat. Americans are still sharply divided over abortion; but the debate is less raucous than it once was, partly beca

In 1995 in Amazing Grace The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation Jonathan Kozol opened a window on the rock-bottom housing health care and schooling of the Motts Haven enclave in the South Bronx His focus was on children facing the worst possible odds His purpose as declared in t

A week or so before Ash Wednesday this year, the Committee for Ecumenical Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will release a 150-page resource book for use by Catholic preachers, teachers, interested laity and Catholic-Jewish dialogue groups. Entitled The Bible, the Jews and the Death

Cardinal George Mundelein, the colorful archbishop of Chicago from 1915 to 1939, styled himself “Prince of the West.” He was indeed the first bishop west of the Allegheny Mountains to be made a cardinal, and he enjoyed to the fullest all the pomp and glory of a prince of the church. But

The publication of the bishops’ document just before Lent will be followed closely--on Ash Wednesday, in fact--by the release of a controversial movie "The Passion of the Christ," produced and directed by the actor Mel Gibson, in over 2,000 theaters across the United States This may

Cardinal Examines Ways to Recover Moral VoiceAlthough the Catholic Church has always provided a moral voice for the modern world on such issues as abortion and war, the voice has lost its force and perhaps become more of a whisper than the shout it once was, said Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicag

For Eugene Kennedy Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago 1928-96 is an exemplar of the paschal mystery ldquo Joseph Bernardin rsquo s life tells us what happens when a man accepts the destiny that is given to few on behalf of us who are the many to recreate the central motif of Christian spirit

The 10th anniversary of the signing of the Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel occurred on Dec. 30, 2003. David-Maria A. Jaeger, O.F.M., has served on the Holy See’s delegation to the negotiations with Israel since 1992 and is widely credited as the principal dra

Sarah Jessica Parker has spent a lot of time at America House. Well, not really. But over the past several years, the cast and crew of the popular, and soon to be departed, HBO series Sex and the City (Sundays, 9 p.m. ET) have frequently been spotted filming on our block in midtown Manhattan, have d

A Pentecost wind—that’s what it felt like the afternoon I took a subway uptown to visit the Mother Cabrini shrine. It was her feast day, Nov. 13, and never having been there, it therefore seemed the right moment to do something I had thought about since my days as a seminarian. Back then

On a January Monday, after busloads of pilgrims returned from this year’s March for Life in Washington, D.C., Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. Louis witnessed the installation of Archbishop Raymond Burke. It was an appropriate juxtaposition of events: local news coverage prior to the instal

Ernest Hemingway rsquo s famous comment about taking up a collection and sending John O rsquo Hara off to Yale once for all may have been a cheap shot but it was one O rsquo Hara rsquo s boorish streak nearly begged for In his unorthodox yet enlightening new biography Geoffrey Wolff makes the case