British Abuse Rules Must Conform to Canon Law An independent commission has urged the Catholic bishops of England and Wales to bring their child-protection measures into line with the Code of Canon Law amid fears that false allegations are driving priests away from working with young people. Produc

Editors Note: East Jerusalem, often called by journalists Arab East Jerusalem, has been for centuries the heart of Palestinian life. After the 1948 Israeli War of Independence, it continued to serve as the center of Palestinian commercial, religious and cultural activity. Even with the unification o

To connect with God, it is sometimes necessary to disconnect.

I used to be a soccer mom, minivan and all. But this morning I had to roll down the windows on my 14-year-old jeep to get all the mosquitoes out that had festered there from the night before. I used to like to grill out on nice summer nights. I havent grilled out for the last two years, out of respe

Not Countercultural Please excuse my sending this comment more than a month after your publication of William Boles informative article American and Catholic, (7/2) on David OBrien. Professor OBrien takes me as representative of Catholics who style themselves as countercultural. I have not used that

Why we should think twice about genetic engineering

The vitality of the Catholic Church in China today is a wonder.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid (John 14:27). Jesus commissions his disciples with these words at the Last Supper. But what does it mean to be called to be peacebuilders with Christ? Two hundred

The late John Paul II’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 came as the culmination of the pope’s two- and-a-half decades of religious peacemaking. The personal importance of the visit for John Paul himself was made clear when, following the closing banquet

The city of Jerusalem has been forever linked to a sense of Jewish identity.   Jerusalem was, is and will forever be at the center of Jewish religious, national and political life. From the earliest days of Jewish living, Jerusalem has been the focus of the Jewish soul. Our father Abraham first

Everyone seems interested these days in defining Catholic identity—movements and Movements, R.C.I.A. and Neocatechumenate, liturgists and “religious” educators, curial vigilantes and the rear-guard of “social actionists.” No one wonders how the Catholic laity define the

In the August 13-20 edition of America, Father Andrew Greeley writes about American Catholics Today, a recent sociological study that seeks to gauge what elements of Catholicism are most important to people in the pews. For more than three quarters of respondents, helping the poor, the Resurrection, the sacraments and Mary were very important. At the bottom of the list were abortion, teaching authority, death penalty and celibate male clergy, Father Greeley writes. He agreed to discuss his article with America by email.

What does this study say about what you have called the "Catholic imagination?

If preaching the Gospel is a vocation it seems odd that little attention is paid to its potential in candidates for the priesthood Can he do the studies is the first question that tends to come to mind meaning the whole panoply of academic philosophy and theology that will engage him for six o

As regular readers of The Good Word know one of our frequent contributors is Father Richard Leonard an Australian Jesuit who splits his time between the Jesuit Theological College in Australia and the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome If you d like to hear more from Father Leonard be s

This Sunday is the nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Daniel Harrington writes about faith and hope Sunday s reading from Hebrews he notes contains the only explicit definition of faith in the Bible Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen Dianne

A well known short story dating from 1916 is Franz Kafka s Metamorphosis In it the protagonist Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning and finds that during the night he has been somehow transformed into a cockroach This story became one of the defining pieces of the Twentieth Century a period who

For those interested in one more take on the reinstatement of the Latin liturgy Commonweal has posted the first of four articles in their upcoming issue about the change The title says it all-- A Step Backward Author Rita Ferrone points out some striking problems such as the exclusion of women