Cities often express their unique character through the particular buildings with which they are associated In the United States for example New York City is linked with either the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building not to mention the recently disappeared twin towers of the World Tra

Welcome to the club! The bishop in a Midwestern diocese offered these words of greeting as he exchanged the sign of peace with each new priest during the ordination ceremony. The year was 1965. The story was told among a group of newly ordained priests, who struck me as both embarrassed and tickled

When democracies like the United States go to war it is up to the leaders of these duly elected governments to protect the life liberty and property of its citizens Military conflicts have presented a special challenge to democratic ideals and principles as the laws of the land can be severely t

Many Catholics believe that unless the priesthood is opened up to women or married men, the church will soon lack enough priests to provide Mass. According to most Catholic social scientists, the growing number of Catholics and shrinking number of priests are inexorably moving the church toward a si

A Goodwill thrift store was at one end of the Maryland town where I grew up, and my first bike came from therea sturdy model that my mother repainted in dark blue. Even as an adult, I used to stop by on trips home, drawn by the store’s amazingly varied contents. I still use a thrift shop alarm

Christ promised that the underworld would never overpower his church, but he did not say this community of his followers would be immune from troubles. Nor has it been. From its first days in Jerusalem, the church has often been violently shaken by forces both within and without.From a multitude of

This new edition of the fascinating account by a medieval Franciscan friar Odoric of Pordenone of his journeys through the Middle and Far East modern-day Turkey Iran Iraq India Sri Lanka Sumatra Java Borneo Vietnam and China comes at an appropriate moment in our national life Since Sept

U.S. Cardinals Meet in RomeThe sexual abuse of minors is rightly considered a crime by society and is an appalling sin in the eyes of God, said a communiqué issued at the conclusion of an extraordinary two-day meeting between American prelates and the Vatican officials on April 23-24. It also calle

Once I finally found the street in the South Bronx for which I had been searching, I almost immediately spotted my destination, a funeral home. From my vantage point inside the car, it looked like little more than a storefront, wedged in between a bodega and an apartment building. If it weren’

When Secretary of State Colin Powell returned from the Middle East, the talking heads speculated that his mission had been a failure. They could make a plausible case. The rulers of the Arab world had refused to make any moves to assist him until the Israelis withdrew from the West Bank. Mr. Arafat,

Though the mostly unheralded centennial of Queen Victoria rsquo s death has now drawn to a close it is pleasant to see various aspects of her sprawling era still being hailed by two writers who differ as Victorian critics might have said toto caelo In a consistently engaging and spirited if som

Two high-profile projects, the building of the cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles and the renovation of the cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Milwaukee, have shown how high a pitch the controversy surrounding church building and renovation can reach. Some have scorned the cathe

Every practicing Catholic, if asked, can summon a number of memorable moments (memorable being the operative word) in their liturgical life experience. Lucky for me, these span two time zones: pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II. I am convinced it was the magic and mystery in the priest’s Intro

Since Sept. 11 the world’s attention, or at least America’s, has been focused on the war on terrorism. One of Pope John Paul II’s responses to this horrific attack was to summon an international assembly of almost 200 religious leaders from 12 of the world’s religions in Assi

The ultimate measure of a choir, cantor or music program is the fervor with which the congregation sings. The Congregation for Divine Worship (1970) instructs: “All means must be used to promote singing by the people” (Third Instruction on the Proper Implementation of the Constitution on

To what extent would it be meaningful or even coherent to think of the moods and experiences of a human lifeits solitude fears sufferings and joys from birth to deathas spiritual events taking place and reverberating within God Is there not something unyielding about the conditions of life th

In Lake Wobegon land, where I teach, ecumenism is largely a Lutheran-Catholic affair, cemented by the shared sacraments of beer and ice-fishing. My students are not much concerned with the subtleties of the recent joint declaration on justification or with the difference between transubstantiation a