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Arts & CultureBooks
The Struggle Continues
Katrina Schuth
This volume is crammed with meticulously researched biblical historical theological and sociological information on order and ministry in the Catholic Church The author Kenan Osborne O F M is professor emeritus at the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley Calif and the author of severa
Editorials
Housing Discrimination
The Editors
Racism in the United States can take many forms. Some are as obvious as slurs shouted from cars or hate crimes; others are less apparent. One of racism’s covert guises is housing discrimination. In April the National Fair Housing Alliance released its fair housing trends report, Unequal Opport
Colombian Dreams
James R. Stormes

 

• Economic growth that will not disappear with the next market change

Arts & CultureBooks
Philip Roth’s Complaint
Peter Heinegg
Roth’s language is mostly matter-of-fact, but often enough he launches into eloquent spasms of what the Germans call erlebte Rede (lived discourse), where writer and character breathe as one.
Immigrant Isabel Rivera from the Dominican Republic takes the oath of citizenship during a naturalization ceremony in New York. (CNS photo/Brendan McDermid, Reuters)
Editorials
America means unfinished business.
The Editors
The Fourth of July is a time for challenging ourselves on the state of the American proposition.
Columns
The Old and the New
Margaret Silf
Sometimes resurrection happens right under your nose. Maybe that’s especially possible when the land is watered by soft rains, most of which fall upon less than appreciative heads, and smiled upon by sunny spring days, a rare treat that can all too easily be missed if you blink. Such a land is
Faith in Focus
Mysterious Tools
Karl Bjorn Erickson
One night a few months ago, my 8-year-old son was very sick in bed. He lay there moaning and crying because of terrible pain in his ears. While my wife was on the phone attempting to get hold of a doctor, I did what I could to comfort him. We tried the usual things, but nothing worked. The choices s
Arts & CultureBooks
Faith and Freedom
R. Bentley Anderson
Jon Meacham managing editor of Newsweek and author of the bestselling book Franklin and Winston states in American Gospel that the United States of America is not a Christian nation that is it was not founded as a confessional state Rather the United States is a nation that allows for religiou
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Drew Christiansen
In some ways I am an old-school Jesuit. In a succession of assignments and apostolic responsibilities, I have lived by St. Ignatius Loyola’s perplexing maxim that he preferred a man of self-denial to one of prayer. I am scandalized, but only slightly, by some young Jesuits’ need for the
Editorials
Sanctions for Evil
The Editors
A tragic irony of the war in Iraq is that it is a Marine Corps unit that is suspected of the largest single atrocity so far reported there. For while the Marines have suffered a disproportionate number of casualties, they have also made an exemplary effort to treat Iraqi civilians with respect. They
FaithThe Word
Rejected Prophets
Daniel J. Harrington
Ezekiel, Paul and Jesus are among the most prominent figures in the Bible. Each was a prophet sent from God. What links them together is their apparent lack of success according to the standards of their own time and place.
The Nuclear Impasse With Iran
John Steinbruner
For most of the past several months, the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program has largely been a theatrical collision of highly antagonistic political attitudes with political leaders in both the United States and Iran using the issue to address their domestic constituencies. It now appears, ho
Letters
Letters
Our readers

Something Different

As a lover of France and French, I have long been fascinated by Joan of Arc, although I find her truly problematic (Believe Me If You Like, by James Martin, S.J., 5/22). Why would God call her to lead an army and fight to put a weak king on the throne of France? But aside from that, I delighted in the fact that she followed by doing what she believed she was called to do, no matter what anyone said. The proceedings of her trial show her to be a spirited and witty young woman, a match for the ecclesiastical court in spite of her lack of theology or education. When asked, shouldn’t she be doing weaving and cooking and all the other things women do, she answered that there were plenty of other women doing those things. Surely one could be spared to do something different. She was well aware that her refusal to wear women’s clothing irked the bishop too, never mind that he himself wore silks and laces and gowns as women did. And I do not think that she was not sexually assaulted by the soldiers because she was plain. Since when have soldiers been that discriminating? I believe it was because she projected an utter trust in God and conviction of her calling, a quality that set her apart. Ultimately, it has always seemed to me that she was condemned because she was a woman who managed to get out from under male control both in the church and in society.

Lucy Fuchs

Arts & CultureBooks
Ahmads Plot
George W. Hunt
John Updike has written a contemporary thriller a first for him after publishing 50 fiction and non-fiction books and a pleasant surprise for the rest of us because it is a fine one John Grisham et al stand aside A pro has entered your ranks The terrorist of the title and the story rsquo s c
Current Comment
Current Comment
The Editors
Havoc in East TimorDespite the efforts of peacekeepers from Australia, New Zealand, Portugal and Malaysia, violence continues to wreak havoc in East Timorone of Asia’s poorest countries. Thousands have fled the unrest in the young nation’s capital, Dili, to set up makeshift camps in outl
News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Bishops Approve New Texts for Order of MassIn what Bishop Donald W. Trautman called a truly important moment in liturgy in the United States, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a new English translation of the Order of Mass and adopted several U.S. adaptations during a national meeting
The Word
Count Your Blessings!
Daniel J. Harrington
Do you ever count your blessings Much in today rsquo s advertising strategy is designed to make us dissatisfied with who we are and what we have The idea is that buying this or that product is going to solve our problems and make us happy Counting the blessings that we have as Christians instead
The Honor of It All
Joseph J. Gallagher
It was just 40 years ago this spring that the documents of the Second Vatican Council first appeared in English translation. The 791-page, 95-cent paperback was chiefly the joint interfaith production of America Press and the Y.M.C.A.’s Association Press. The general editor was Walter M. Abbot
Television
The Year in TV
James Martin, S.J.
Over the Memorial Day weekend I visited a friend who lives with his large family and who owns, improbably, a horse--a retired police horse, to be exact. As we ambled through the stables, my friend’s 13-year-old daughter said, "Do you like Taylor Hicks?" Somehow the look on her face t
Current Comment
Current Comment
The Editors
A German Pope at AuschwitzAt the close of Pope Benedict XVI’s prayers at the concentration camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau, in Poland, storm clouds overhead gave way to sunshine and, improbably, a rainbow appeared.Unlike his predecessor, Benedict is not much of a world traveller. He has taken only