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Current Comment
As Others See UsInequities in the U.S. criminal justice system were among the subjects of concern that drew criticism from the United Nations Human Rights Committee last July in Geneva. Maximum security prisons came under fire for virtually 24-hour confinement of prisoners to their cells. Also of co
Arts & CultureBooks
If asked ldquo Who is Satan rdquo most of us might give an answer something like this Satan or the Devil is the fallen angel who persuaded Adam and Eve to commit the ldquo original sin rdquo Also known as the Antichrist and Lucifer he now presides over hell and entices people on earth to sin
In the latest of my weekly telephone conversations with a colleague who lives in France, the first question she asked was, What do you think of the pope and Islam? Rarely inclined to talk politics, she was testing me out. And my response was testing her as well. Well, I think he could have said it d
News
In the Sept. 25 issue of America, Professor Marci A. Hamilton joined with Voice of the Faithful in renewing their call for “window” legislation. Window legislation retroactively suspends the statute of limitation for childhood sexual abuse damage claims so that lawsuits filed during a sp
Editorials
Armies inevitably refight the last war, and generals are often unprepared for the new war their enemy brings them. The law and ethics of war follow the same pattern. Years go by before lawmakers and ethicists recognize the worrisome changes that have overtaken warfare. It took decades for the human
Columns
I have learned the hard way - through many a tortured battle with airport scales around the world - to travel light. So my modest 14 kilograms caused no convulsions at the Manchester airport, and I confidently watched the check-in attendant fasten the label around my bag, designating its intended de
Arts & CultureBooks
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the most controversialand courageousthinker to address the status of Muslims in Western societies today Born in Somalia and raised a Muslim she fled to the Netherlands in 1992 to escape an arranged marriage As an interpreter for Somali refugees she gained firsthand experience c
The current debate over torture revolves around a hasty judgment that has become American common sense and an axiom of public policy: that “on 9/11, everything changed.” Sept. 11, 2001, was a date on which tragic and traumatic events took place. The vivid horror of the airplane crashes a
Letters
Worth Reading
I was delighted to read the articles by Robert Ellsberg and the Rev. Gerald S. Twomey concerning Henri Nouwen (9/8). My son, a priest, gave me Nouwen’s book, Bread for the Journey, for my birthday in April 1999.
Since that time it sits on my kitchen table, and I don’t miss a day without reading it. It is truly a beautiful book with inspirational thoughts for every day of the year.
Keep it on your kitchen table or your nightstand, because it is really worth reading!
Frances C. Higgins
Of Many Things
Soon after I was ordained, I drove north with two classmates to Alaska. Bishop Robert Whelan had invited me to take up my first pastoral assignment as a stand-in for Father Mike Kanicki, later himself bishop of Fairbanks, at St. Francis Xavier Mission in Kotzebue, an Inuit town 120 miles north of th
Editorials
In the minds of many Muslims, because the Catholic Church is the oldest and was for centuries the leading institution in the West, the church and the pope as its head are identified as representatives of the West. Though Pope Benedict XVI’s address in Regensburg, Germany, on Sept. 12 was devot
In his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI remarked that the essential functions of the church are three, for which he gives the Greek terms: leitourgia (worship), marturia/kerygma (witness/proclamation), and diakonia (service). He uses the word marturia (witness) in the original s
Arts & CultureBooks
Although the Bush administration has been in a snit about The New York Times rsquo s recent revelations of government spying on Americans and the surveillance of the banking records of presumed terrorists the president has actually had an easy time of it with the Fourth Estate according to Eric Bo
The Al Qaeda that most Americans imagine does not exist. It is largely a figment of our imaginations and fears, a phantom that never existed in the way that many of us imagine. Al Qaeda is not an "organization" in the Western sense of the word. It is a movement, a historical phenomenon and
Current Comment
Census Data and the PoorThe poor became poorer last year, according to a recent analysis of the new U.S. Census Bureau data by the nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Put another way, the report points out that the proportion of poor people who experienced severe povertythat is, whose
News
Study Reports Influences on Newly Ordained PriestsAccording to a new study, recently ordained priests are now older and more culturally diverse than those of 15 years ago. The major theological influence on new priests was Pope John Paul II. The German Jesuit Karl Rahner, who easily ranked at the to
Yom Kippur in Buenos Aires, 1945. I stood next to my father as we prayed with our small community in a rented room in the Jewish Old Age Home. The men were wrapped in white shawls, called a kittel, a symbol of the angels in heaven and a reminder of death, for it was also the shroud in which they wou
Arts & CultureBooks
Although it may be hard to imagine a volume on the construction of St Peter rsquo s Basilica as a beach book R A Scotti has produced an account gripping enough to be one The subtitle The Splendor and the Scandal hints at its focus This is not a dry account for the architectural journals but
Faith in Focus
Jesus called God “Abba” (“dear Father”), which tells us something about his relationship with God. In the same vein, he told his followers, “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father in heaven’” (Matt 6: 9), telling us that we have a similar relationship wi
The Word
Two of the most difficult problems facing the Catholic Church in the United States in the early part of the 21st century are the high incidence of divorce and the fallout from the crisis caused by sexual abuse by members of the clergy These are complicated matters that demand to be approached from