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FaithFaith and Reason
Christopher J. Ruddy
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has suffered cardiac arrest in recent decades.
Of Many Things
Patricia A. Kossmann
On Dec. 4, seven weeks shy of her 94th birthday, my mother, Marie, was called home to God. In a way, it was rather unexpected, the final “complication” following a fall down a flight of stairs 10 days earlier (nothing broken, miraculously), then a brief bout with chest congestion. I got
Books
Peter Heinegg
American Catholics old enough to remember Bishop Fulton J Sheen and his famous chalk talks on televisionsermonettes punctuated by occasional salvos against Communism psychoanalysis and birth controlwill be stunned by how much more worldly engaging and hip apologetics can be in the hands of a maes
Faith in Focus
Valerie Schultz
Psalm 150 happened in our youth center last night, although we might have to change some of the words to make it an exact fit:

          Praise him with bass and lead guitar

Faith
John W. OMalley
John W. O’Malley, S.J.: The ‘how’ of the church changed during the council.
Dennis M. Linehan
Last summer I traveled to the other end of the globe and met a modern heroine, described by a friend as “our four-foot terrorist.” Maryknoll Sister Nora Maulawin earned that description during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, when, under regular surveillance, she was followed, in
The Word
Dianne Bergant
Last Sunday we reflected on the new life that forgiveness from God and from others can offer us We saw that if we are the ones forgiven we must change our ways so that we no longer offend if we are the ones forgiving we must refrain from bringing up time and again the offense that caused us to s
Books
Wayne A. Holst
In his foreword to Finding the Treasure Within A Woman rsquo s Journey into Preaching the spiritual author Ronald Rolheiser O M I writes We are forever caught up in situations that are less than ideal full of tension and fraught with potential for self-pity and bitterness So what can we
Columns
Thomas J. McCarthy
Brace yourself, good reader. My subject is once again mortality. If you’re frowning right now, all the better. I have before me a brochure for Botox cosmetic treatment, which claims to “smooth the deep, persistent lines between your brows that developed over time.” I love metaphor,
Avery Dulles
The memory of the Second Vatican Council, 40 years after the opening of the council, continues to arouse both acclamation and vilification. Its champions, in many cases, see it as having liberated Catholics from a long night of oppression, thus restoring to the people of God their rightful liberties
News
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Pope’s Envoy Presses Iraq to Cooperate With InspectorsPope John Paul II appealed again for a peaceful settlement of the crisis in Iraq and sent a high-level envoy to Baghdad to press for greater Iraqi cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors. Cardinal Roger Etchegaray left for Baghdad on Feb.
Avery DullesJohn W. O’Malley
On the fortieth anniversary of its opening, two distinguished Jesuit theologians looked back on the myths and realities of Vatican II.
Books
Christopher W. Franz
More words are misused in politics than in any other field of human endeavor Radical has come to mean something like extremist through repeated misapplication but it comes from the Latin radix meaning root radical politics is therefore supposed to be just another term for grass-roots activism Mi
Letters
Our readers

Knows Our Needs

I appreciated the article The Delight of Sunday, by Robert A. Senser (1/6). He offered some good insights into the observance of the Lord’s Day. One aspect he did not touch upon explicitly was one that I have been preaching about for years: the Lord’s day of rest is a gift, something that God gave to us because of the need we have for rest. It should not be a day to anguish over just how much work we can or should do. Rather, we should recognize the rest as a wonderful gift from God who loves us and knows our needs.

(Rev.) Phil M. Tracy

Editorials
The Editors
In the Western democratic tradition, debates over war and peace are recorded as far back as the Peloponnesian Wars. St. Augustine assumed, by the lights of his day, that the decision for war lay solely with the magistrate. By Shakespeare’s time, audiences had become sufficiently sophisticated
The Word
Dianne Bergant
The phrase ldquo Give it up rdquo signals two very different practices which are part of two equally different occasions The more recent meaning is a call to applaud a musical or dramatic performance of quality the traditional understanding is a summons to penance particularly during Lent As
Henry J. Hyde
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, issued on Jan. 16 a document, dated Nov. 24, 2002, entitled “Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life.” The note addresses some of the m
Robert F. Drinan
The intractable question of allowing affirmative action to be used in the selection of students for college admission will finally be settled by the United States Supreme Court. Two cases involving plaintiffs denied admission at the University of Michigan, allegedly because they are white, will be d
The Word
Dianne Bergant
We have many expressions for assuring each other that the mistakes we have made will not be held against us The most familiar include ldquo I forgive you rdquo ldquo Don rsquo t worry about it rdquo ldquo That rsquo s O K rdquo and more recently ldquo No problem rdquo These are simpl
Books
Olga Bonfiglio
For an on-the-ground feel for the Holy Land and the high stakes it holds for the world rsquo s three great religions Judaism Christianity and Islam Bruce Feiler rsquo s book Walking the Bible is the next best thing to being there The journalist-author takes readers on a guided tour of the first