Two friends have taken their own lives within a short time: one by consuming more of the drugs that were killing her anyway; the other, also enslaved to drugs, who hastened his death with a bullet. The phone rings: there has been a suicide. A life is ended. Just like that.The avoidability of these d

The Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths, all principally focused on the Mediterranean world, were based on a conviction that the marvel and complexity of their world required a planner, a creator, of superhuman power. Gradually, as these religions expanded and developed, they recognized that this pl

Here in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los ángeles, The City of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels, a city most people know as Los Angeles, one cannot go long without encountering Our Lady of Guadalupe. She gazes tranquilly from the stucco walls of convenience stores, from the black dashboards

I appreciate the invitation of the editors of America to respond to the article in this issue by John W. O’Malley, S.J., “Vatican II: Official Norms,” and to the very substantive letters published on March 17 commenting on my own article “Vatican II: The Myth and the Reality

My Irish grandmother spent her first 16 winters in the West Cork town of Newmarket, near Kanturk, on the border of County Kerry. Between her arrival in the United States in 1888 and my father’s birth in 1911, she returned to Ireland three times. In those days one could sail from Philadelphia t

If you like mysteries read this book Even if you don rsquo t like mysteries read itbecause it may save your life The world-famous epidemiologist Devra Davis tracks a killer responsible for millions of avoidable ailments like heart disease and cancer She explains for example why women with high

Among the gifts I received upon my ordination to the priesthood, one that has proven unexpectedly valuable is the Book of Blessings. Its prayers bring to bear on all moments of life the wisdom of Scripture and tradition. I realized this when searching for fitting words to begin our pilgrimage to Wor

The economy continues to slump, and business commentators point to fears of war as the cause of depressed stock prices and lower consumer confidence. This must be disconcerting to Marxist theorists, who claim that all wars are started by capitalists seeking profits. True, some parts of the economy w

Confessional Seal Under Attack In Several StatesThe crisis in the U.S. Catholic Church caused by the scandal of sexual abuse by clergy has sparked a variety of state legislative initiatives to strengthen child abuse laws, including efforts in five states to force a priest to violate the seal of conf

Traditional devotions can provoke a wide variety of reactions among contemporary Catholics. For many, the devotional life discovered during childhood has never lost its appeal. For some it has always remained on the fringes of their Catholicism. For still others it seems inconsistent with a mature f

It was a bold move. With numerous Vatican officials and Pope John Paul II himself vigorously voicing criticism of a possible war with Iraq, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See and former Republican national chairman, Jim Nicholson, invited Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute in Washin

A document entitled Jesus Christ, the Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian Reflection on the “New Age” was jointly released by four Vatican offices on Feb. 3 in Rome as a 90-page booklet complete with a select glossary of New Age terms.   There is a chorus of voices in the text,

The comedian Steve Martin once quipped that the problem with studying philosophy in college is that later in life one always remembers just enough of it to make one rsquo s conscience uncomfortable In his new novel The Cave Nobel laureate Jos eacute Saramago hearkens back to perhaps the best kno

By the time of Gregory the Great (died 604), the Litany of Saints, first of the great Latin litanies, was a full-blown, dress-up affair. Best vestments and all of that. Copes and chasubles. Embroidered and brocaded. Nauters and thuribles. Obviously, it was a prayer for the clergy; they shared with t

Last year, three times per week, I would stumble out of the 59th Street subway station in midtown Manhattan, stupefied by the competing traffic jam of landmarks. Trump Tower shot up from my left as Christopher Columbus balanced himself on my right, claiming dominion over his stone pillar and the int

My mind, like the minds of many Americans, could easily be consumed with thoughts of attacking Iraq. There is no end of opinions, information and disinformation about why it should or should not happen. What’s interesting is that the more we learn about incremental Iraqi compliance and opposit

Imagine one of those unspeakably beautiful September mornings in New York, with sunlight shouldering its way across the East River, nudging the bridges and skyscrapers and striding into the concrete canyons of Lower Manhattan. The air itself energizes office workers pouring into Manhattan from Queen

The clergy sexual abuse scandal has left us stunned and confused. But crisis in the church is not a new phenomenon. One of the most important spiritual resources in times of crisis in the church has been Scripture. Two items in this year’s roundup of books on the Bible deal explicitly with Cat