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Faith in Focus
My pager went off at 5 p.m., just after my husband and I had come home from work. I called the long-term care facility where I was the director of nurses. The receptionist told me to call immediately the emergency room of one of our local hospitals. When I asked for the nurse who had left the messag
Arts & CultureBooks
Baghdad is burning when Paul Bremer arrives in May 2003 It is still burning when he leaves 14 months later The fires of looters have been replaced by attacks from an insurgency that intensified during his tour of duty as head of the Coalition Provisional Authority Things get so hot in the land Br
Of Many Things
The first cold day of the approaching winter found me at the Hoboken Shelter in New Jersey, the only shelter in that rapidly gentrifying city across the Hudson River from Manhattan (www.hobokenshelter.org). Housed in a 19th-century Lutheran church, the shelter has had as its guiding spirit for three
News
Peace Gathering Marks 20 Years Since AssisiThemes of prayer, peace, justice, love, dialogue and care for the poor intermingled as representatives of world religions gathered in Washington, D.C., on April 26 for the 2006 International Prayer for Peace. It marked the 20th anniversary of the first such
Buffalo, frigid northern city of—refugees? Yes, refugees. I spent a week in Buffalo last June helping out in a small Jesuit parish, St. Ann’s, located in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Among the first issues the pastor told me about was the struggle of refugees and asylum
Editorials
The investigative reporter Seymour Hersh broke the story just as Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that his country had succeeded in enriching uranium. The Bush administration, Hersh wrote, is planning a preventive military attack against Iran, possibly with the use of tactical nu
Faith
Following a junior varsity lacrosse game one slushy spring afternoon in suburban Boston, I overheard a player ask another, Can you be an M.F.O. and take the water jug back to the bus for me, so I can catch a ride with my dad? I wondered, What is an M.F.O.? As a teacher in a Jesuit high school, I tak
FaithBooks
Joan of Arc is a saint of perennial appeal, even in postmodern America. At the level of popular culture, Joan’s unlikely story makes for good reading and viewing, not to mention innumerable hagiographic and literary interpretations.
Faith in Focus
On December 10, 2005, a Sosoliso Airlines DC-9 aircraft crashed in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, killing 127 passengers. Sixty of those killed were students of Loyola Jesuit College in Abuja, Nigeria. This reflection was written shortly after the event.
Of Many Things
In the previous Of Many Things column (4/24), Father Jim McDermott remarked how Easter, after the extended observance of Lent, can seem to come and go with barely any impact on believers. Because it demands more of us, Lent seems to draw our attention more dramatically. I have a different take on th
News
Archbishop Calls for More Spanish-Language RadioArchbishop Elden F. Curtiss of Omaha has encouraged his fellow U.S. bishops to develop Spanish-language Catholic radio stations as a way of reaching Hispanic Catholics. With the Hispanic population growing rapidly in the United States, many dioceses fa
Arts & CultureBooks
Feelings regarding race run deep in the history of New Orleans At the close of World War II returning black G I rsquo s were no longer willing to accept the many unjust racial laws or observe the many petty laws and regulations that made up daily life in the southern states A new and different c
This past February, the landscape of American Catholic higher education was battered by a perfect storm. It was not a meteorological storm - the winter was uncommonly mild. It was an ideological storm, constituted by clashing winds of academic freedom, sexual expression, feminism, Catholic moral tea
Letters
Equitable Rights
Thanks for the informative, if sobering, article by Fred Naffziger on the bankruptcy situations in the Portland and Spokane dioceses (3/27).
I have never been able to understand why our Catholic dioceses do not simply implement the spirit and letter of Canon 1256 and set up each parish’s property in an express trust, with the bishop as the sole trustee. That way, instead of having to argue from canon law, apparently ineffectually thus far, that this property ought to be considered a constructive or resulting trust, despite the fact that the bishop holds legal title, American courts might then be forced to recognize the equitable rights of local parishioners and their successors in such property. This would at least offer protection to the majority of parishes that never had any instance of sexual abuse by the clergy.
Paul A. Becker, Esq.
Editorials
Massive rallies around the country demonstrate a groundswell of popular opinion pressing for comprehensive immigration reform. Encouraged by the church, these have been peaceful events by primarily hardworking, family-oriented people. The demonstrators want to see undocumented people given the oppor
Columns
A couple of months ago, I wrote a gloomy, mid-winter’s column about a depressing round of Catholic school closings in and around my home in New Jersey. I referred to the early months of the calendar year as the saddest time of year for many Catholic school students, because often that is when
Arts & CultureBooks
Emilie Griffin was in her 20 rsquo s when she was received into the Catholic Church in August 1963 after what she describes as a passionate choice an upheaval and a homecoming She was drawn to the church in part because it offered the possibility of an interior life a realm in which I would be s
I remember being a high school sophomore and getting the college brochures in the mailthey said St. Peter’s and underneath The Jesuit College of New Jersey. It almost seemed to be a part of the title of the school, that phrase so often followed its name. This was repeated on other brochures, l
The Word
At its most basic level the word ldquo mysticism rdquo refers to a direct intimate union of a person with God through contemplation and love The Scripture readings for the Fifth Sunday of Easter can help explain why every serious Christian can and should be a mystic The allegory of the vine in
Of Many Things
As we moved into the Easter season this year, I found myself thinking of a comment by the sacramental theologian Peter Fink, S.J., about how difficult it can be to get Catholics to pay attention to the Easter season. After 40 days of Lent and the Easter Triduum, people’s focus and imagination