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The Measured Pace of Rapid Development
Russell Shaw
On Feb. 21 the Vatican issued the most authoritative papal statement on the church and communications in nearly 50 years. Addressed to those responsible for communications, Pope John Paul II’s apostolic letter Rapid Development (Il Rapido Sviluppo) stirred a ripple of interest at first, but wa
Letters
Letters

Providing Maps

I enjoyed Jesuit History: A New Hot Topic, by John W. O’Malley, S.J., (5/9). Your readers may be interested to know that there is a particularly hot spot within this theme, and that is the story of Jesuits as mapmakers, particularly in the Americas. From the late 17th century until the suppression of the order in the late 18th century, many Jesuits from central Europe sought to enter the mission field, and so went to serve in the overseas possessions of the Habsburgs in what is now Spanish America. These Jesuits had been exceptionally well trained in mathematics, geography and even cartography; and once they arrived in the New World, they were often sent to remote mission stations. These areas were almost always unmapped by Europeans, and so the Jesuits’ training was by chance, as it were, put to good effect all over the continent, from Mexico to Patagonia (and indeed in Canada, another story). The resulting work covered very extensive areas of the Americas, and would not be rivaled in extent until the coming of the national governments in the 19th century.

David Buisseret

Arts & CultureBooks
Guatemala Nunca Ms!
George M. Anderson
What paradise and what ashes are meant by the title Paradise in Ashes A Guatemalan Journey of Courage Terror and Hope The paradise refers to the small village of Santa Mar a Tzej In the late 1960 rsquo s it was virtually carved out of the rain forest in northern Guatemala by a group of poor
Film
Once More, Without Feeling: Melinda and Melinda
Richard A. Blake
It’s hard. Reviews of Woody Allen’s new films generally break into two categories: The master hasn’t lost his touch, or the master is in decline. Those of us who have followed Allen’s career closely over the last 30 years and consider him the greatest American filmmaker of th
Arts & CultureBooks
Music's New World Order
Roger Evans
This capacious impressive often enjoyable book takes as its point of departure the late 19th-century orchestral cultures of New York and Boston assembling a story for which the author rsquo s Understanding Toscanini and Wagner Nights well prepared him This focus is understandable since Joseph H
Editorials
Drawing Lines
The Editors
In its decision in the case of Zorach v. Clauson in 1952, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a New York City program that provided released time for the religious instruction of public school pupils during school hours but apart from public school buildings. The opinion for the 6-to-3 majority was writte
No to Abortion:Posture, Not Policy
Dennis O
It is clear that the Catholic Church has a moral position on abortion. It is not clear that it has a political policy on the issue. Moral positions do not automatically create public policies. I may be morally opposed to the use of addictive drugs, but I may also think that the U.S. public policy of
Little Gray Cells
James J. DiGiacomo
From 2005, a popular article about faith and the intellect by the late James J. DiGiacomo, S.J.
Letters
Letters

Real Heroes

The Without Guile cartoon by Harley Schwadron, How come there aren’t any peace heroes? (4/25) ought to be made available on T-shirts and sweatshirts. I’d buy one.

Phyllis Karr

Arts & CultureBooks
Communio
Thomas P. Rausch
Cardinal Walter Kasper prefect of the Vatican rsquo s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity was well established as a theologian long before being made a bishop For many years he was on the faculty of the University of T bingen where his colleagues included Hans K ng His present bo
News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Justice for ImmigrantsCiting reasons as broad as Catholic teaching about the right to migrate to improve one’s life and as narrow as the need of one emigrant from Guyana to support his family, more than a dozen church organizations and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on May 10 launched
What the Pope Needs to Know
Kathleen McChesney
The sympathetic response of Americans to the death of Pope John Paul II might suggest that the sexual abuse crisis in the United States has not harmed the reputation of the church, and that trust in its leadership remains strong. The public’s high regard for Pope John Paul II and the love of C
The Word
Love Makes the World Go Round
Dianne Bergant
We are bombarded with talk of love Advertisements capitalize on it with inspiring scenes and gestures music extols its virtues and greeting cards convey tender sentiments And yet there seems to be so little genuine love in the world Perhaps this is because we do not think that some people have
The Shield of Achilles
Drew Christiansen
For me, growing up in the years after World War II, Memorial Day meant a civic service of remembrance at a neighborhood monument with a heart-stopping rifle salute to the dead; followed by a parade down Staten Island’s Victory Boulevard, where columns of veterans, active military units and martial bands passed in review; and finally a family visit to St. Peter’s Cemetery to lay a wreath on my Uncle Joe’s grave, where the American Legion had already stopped to plant an American flag.

Today my rituals are more private, pensive and mournful: a small Mass in community where, as we do on most days, we pray for all today’s war dead; a mournful remembrance of the service personnel killed in Iraq, whose photos I survey each month in The New York Times, and the scores of faceless Iraqi civilians daily slaughtered by terrorist insurgents; and finally reading war poetry, for a poem captures better than news reports the ambiguity, the pain and, most of all, the evil of war.

This year I settled on W. H. Auden’s Shield of Achilles, a favorite I read often in times like these, of low-intensity, low-profile warfare. Published in 1955, the poem draws on a passage of Homer’s Iliad, where the lame blacksmith god Hephaestus, at the request of Thetis, Achilles’ mother, fashions a magnificent shield for the hero celebrating scenes of Greek pastoral and civic life. As if to contrast the heroic ideal with the modern reality, Auden alternates short, lyric depictions of the Homeric shield with elegiac descriptions of modern war.

The second modern stanza is typical:

Out of the air a voice without a face

Of Many Things
Of Many Things
James T. Keane
Even longtime readers of America may be unaware of the origins of this periodical. It was born in April 1909, during the worst days of the anti-Modernist crusade in the Catholic Church. Hysterical paranoia ran rampant, and Catholic intellectuals and writers were one after another accused of heresy b
Arts & CultureBooks
To the Bitter End
Tim Davis
The newest book from Stephen Koch the celebrated author of Double Lives Spies and Writers in the Secret Soviet War Against the West and The Modern Library Writer rsquo s Workshop is a riveting mix of biography and history As biographer Koch writes of Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos their
Fog Over Iraq
John F. Kavanaugh
As May 2005 approached, the country noted a painful anniversary. In the spring of 1975 Saigon fell to the Viet Cong. The images still horrify. The memory remains too sad. Any healing thoughts are of the Vietnamese peoplethe millions killed and maimed but grieved, those who were on our side and were
Sing a New Song: Part 2, The St. Louis Jesuits: Earthen Vessels
Jim McDermott
It is hard today to appreciate the significance of the St. Louis Jesuits. Forty years after the Second Vatican Council, the idea of a vernacular liturgy that takes Scripture seriously and attempts to engage the congregation’s participation at every step has become relatively commonplace. But i
News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Jesuit Officials Say America Editor Resigned After Vatican ComplaintsJesuit officials in Rome said Thomas J. Reese, S.J., resigned as editor in chief of America magazine after repeated complaints from then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who objected to the magazine’s treatment of sensitive church
Arts & CultureBooks
Worship's Place, Space
Thomas R. Slon
The problematic issues regarding art and architecture vis- -vis worship and current liturgical practice have seldom been thornier The saying that real art won rsquo t match the sofa seems to sum up the status of art today At least in the areas of painting and sculpture what is considered ldquo