Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options

Clear filter
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
George M. Anderson
"Getting out of prison, I had no job and no place to go, so I ended up in a shelter in Brooklyn,” said José Carrero. A recent graduate of the Ready, Willing & Able program of the Doe Fund, which helps homeless people become independent, José spoke these words at its annual graduatio
FaithShort Take
Thoughts on Yom Kippur
Rabbi Michael Lerner
From the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, until the end of Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), Jews around the world engage in an intense annual period of repentance.
The New Name for Peace
G. Jefferson Price, III
Andrew S. Natsios, administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, sent a shudder through the room at a food aid conference in Kansas City, Mo., in May when he said that food aid to the survivors of disasters is a higher priority than aid for development programs. Two-thirds to thre
Letters
Letters

Church and War

The article by Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Holy See Backs Nuclear Disarmament (9/12), is excellent. We need more articles on this issue and on the church’s positions on war in general. A substantial number of Catholics in the United States think that the church supports the war in Iraq.

Walter C. Hooke

Arts & CultureBooks
A Complex Experience
Jay P. Dolan
Most Irish Americans have the impression that the history of Irish America began in the 19th century when over three million Irish mostly Catholic emigrated to the United States That is false This history began in the 18th century when thousands of Irish mostly Protestant emigrated to Britis
Not Where, But Why
Thomas R. Slon
In the task of designing church interiors, one of the most neuralgic issues is the placement of the tabernacle. Behind the altar? To the side of the altar? In a separate chapel? In recent years, the visual prominence of the tabernacle, not the centrality of the altar, seems to have become for some t
Culture
John's Gospel Revisited
Daniel J. Harrington
In October 2003 I was part of a scholarly meeting that honored the memory and accomplishments of Raymond E. Brown, S.S. It was entitled “An International Conference on the Gospel of John: Life in Abundance,” and held at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, where Brown s
FaithThe Word
Food! Glorious Food!
Dianne Bergant
A scene in ldquo Oliver rdquo the musical based on Charles Dickens rsquo s classic tale Oliver Twist depicts a crowd of ragged starving urchins celebrating the pleasures of eating ldquo Food Glorious food rdquo Deprived as they were they certainly appreciated the delight of food perhaps
Editorials
Failure of Leadership
The Editors
The United Nations summit meeting has ended. On the whole, the outcome of the deliberations of nearly 170 world leaders was disappointing. Secretary General Kofi Annan commented, "Obviously, we didn’t get everything we wanted." In particular, he called the absence of any commitments
Our Daily Bread
Donald W. Trautman
The year of the Eucharist, inaugurated by Pope John Paul II in October 2004, will conclude with the meeting this month of the World Synod of Bishops in Rome. This assembly of bishops will also mark the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Synod of Bishops. While post-synodal papal exhortatio
Sending Us Forth
Michael S. Driscoll
The working document, or instrumentum laboris, for the World Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist that meets this month in Rome begins with a beautiful reflection on the symbolic meaning of bread for the life of the world. This reflects the grave concern expressed by readers of an early draft about the
Letters
Letters

Thinking People

You can only blame yourselves! As a Jesuit-trained scientist (Holy Cross, 1959; Ph.D. in physics from U.C.L.A., 1965), I was trained to use my Little Gray Cells (5/30) in a continual challenge of hypotheses, no matter how enticing, no matter how vigorously promulgated by respected authorities. It worked for me in a satisfying career in teaching and research at U.C.L.A., diverse foreign universities, and the University of California Davis. I taught entry-level physics for hard science majors for many years. Among the most pathetic cases I encountered were students from a conservative or evangelical background who had somehow to mesh a literal interpretation of the Bible with the overwhelming evidence of science. In many cases they resorted to God the Great Deceiver, who made the world in six days circa 5,000 years ago but imbedded in the world misleading clues about a universe 13.5 billion years old. They were not allowed to use their little gray cells in whole areas of their existence. Off limits. Do not tread there!

So are we, Catholic students and faculty together, supposed to turn off our little gray cells as we walk through the door of the church? That seems to be the desire of some in authority, but it blocks us from a more profound and holistic knowledge of our existence. One area that I would like to see examined is a discussion of the effect of science on religion. The early church adopted a literal interpretation of the Bible now rejected by science, the Catholic Church, and most mainline Christians. Thus, the human interpretations of Jesus’ message in the early church were in some respects biased by the incorrect science of the times. What would the early Fathers have concluded based on more accurate scientific knowledge? In many cases, the question is not relevant. But in a few, the impact could be significant. How would knowledge of the lack of a physical, as opposed to metaphorical, Adam and Eve have modified the thinking of St. Augustine on original sin? Could he have conceived of an all-determining original sin that cast humankind into the abyss without an original sinner?

Sticking with Genesis a bit further, the key message involves the role of free will and the ability to make choices in full knowledge of the consequences thereof, good and bad. The church has wisely said that an immortal soul, a gift of God, cannot arise from material evolution. Would our more accurate knowledge about the development of human consciousness modify how the church analyzed when that transcendental gift occurs? Could such a gift occur when a being has no ability rationally to choose good and evil with knowledge of the consequences thereof and an ability to modify behavior? How does that touch upon the role of infant baptism for a human being who has yet to be able to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge?

The church has waltzed around these questions for centuries, trying to merge our knowledge of a just and loving God with a series of mostly philosophical constructs (limbo?) designed to paper over the fundamental problems. It would be far better to address these problems head on with a bit of Catholic little gray cell thinking so that we can present a unified truth that blends science and religion in a way to attract thinking people everywhere. On most days, that includes at least some of my students.

Thomas A. Cahill

News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Jordanian King Abdullah Criticizes Hijacking of Islam by Violent and Ignorant Extremists’Muslim political and religious leaders must fight to take back our religion from the vocal, violent and ignorant extremists who have tried to hijack Islam over the last 100 years, said King Abdullah II of
Christ Among Us
Judith M. Kubicki
The Gospels are filled with stories of Jesus sharing meals not only with his disciples but also with many others, whether important or lowly. Indeed, table fellowship was one of the frequent events by which the disciples experienced their personal relationship with Christ. After the resurrection, th
Film
Faces and Flowers: Broken Flowers
Richard A. Blake
Broken Flowers needs no narrative. Bill Murray’s face says it all: unspeakably sad eyes that might once have had the twinkle of a comedian, pitted jowls and a mouth far too small and puffy for a face grown larger as his forehead nudges his hairline backwards. He stares intently at his huge pla
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Drew Christiansen
"When you are old, another will gird you and lead you where you do not wish to go” (Jn 21:18). So Jesus prophesied St. Peter’s death in old age. The saying, however, has always had a gnomic quality for me, as if it applied in some sense to us all. No exegete I have read has ever ind
Columns
A Lesson in Perspective
Terry Golway
Perspective is not among the virtues generally associated with youth. Like aching joints and sagging midsections, perspective is what you get when, like St. Paul, you at last put away the things of childhood. If, however, you paid close attention to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (and who didn&r
News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Women Religious Call for Withdrawal From IraqThe Leadership Conference of Women Religious has called on the U.S. government to develop a responsible plan for the withdrawal of troops in Iraq and to redirect needed resources to meet human needs at home and in other parts of the world. In a statement
A Blueprint for Change
Thomas J. Healey
For two extraordinary days in the summer of 2004, 175 religious and lay leaders gathered in Philadelphia to wrestle with the future of the Catholic Church in this country. The site of the conference - the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania - could not have been more appropriate, given
Faith in Focus
Emotional Oology
Valerie Schultz
A woman is born with all of her eggs. Unlike male sperm, which are produced continually and by the millions throughout a man’s life, a woman’s immature eggs are contained in follicles in her newborn ovaries. Over the course of her reproductive years, 300 to 500 eggs will mature. Each mon