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Annulment
Two articles about the Catholic Church’s process for granting an annulment of marriage were recently published in America: The Annulment, by Joseph A. Califano Jr. (11/15/04), and The Anguish of Annulment (2/28/05). We publish here a representative sampling of the letters prompted by these art
A Passion for Unity
Peter J. Bernardi
Yves-Marie Congar, O.P., was the 20th century’s leading Catholic ecumenical theologian and one of the most influential contributors to the Second Vatican Council. Pope John Paul recognized his outstanding service to the church when he named him a cardinal not long before he died in 1995 at the
Arts & CultureBooks
The Conjurer
Constance M. McGovern
The Rough Rider the Bull Moose the president who used his office as a bully pulpit the man who carried the big stick the asthmatic child who spent mornings on horseback the hunter of lions who nevertheless spared one teddy bearwhat reader cannot already limn the life of the 26th American presid
Arts & CultureBooks
Confronting a Culture of Fear
Paul Wachter
In the wake of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean as the death toll quickly climbed into the tens of thousands many religious leaders and op-ed pundits focused on a single question Where was God For nonbelievers the catastrophe while tragic was easily explainable Science tells us that a violent
FaithThe Word
Follow the Leader!
Dianne Bergant
The Fourth Sunday of Easter has traditionally been known as Good Shepherd Sunday. The particular focus today is on leadership Whose leadership do we follow?
FaithEditorials
Genesis and Darwinism
The Editors
In a message to the Pontifical Academy of Science in October 1996, Pope John Paul II said, New knowledge leads to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. That is to say, this theory is not a guess, but the established framework for understanding the origin of species fr
Iraq's Urgent Need for A Reconciliation Ethic
Daniel Philpott
Christian ethicists are far more reticent about how the United States should proceed in an Iraq exploding with car bombs than they were about whether to launch the present war in the first place. Their reserve is unsurprising, for both just war ethicists and pacifists have much to say about whether
Letters
Letters

Archbishop Replies

An advertisement placed by Voice of the Faithful in the March 14 issue of America erroneously stated that I had dismissed a lay board responsible for reviewing cases of clergy child sexual abuse.

Our Case Review Board was not dismissed. It had concluded its work according to guidelines set out in the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People and the Essential Norms approved in Dallas in 2002 by the U.S. bishops and the Vatican.

I appointed the Case Review Board following approval of the Dallas charter to review 13 allegations of child sexual abuse against clergy. Concurrent with this, we have had a Policy Review Board in place to review archdiocesan policies for prevention of abuse and protection of children.

Once the Case Review Board concluded its work last year, no further cases remained, and I determined the time was right to bring our review process into conformity with the national model by consolidating the two existing boards into a single board. I took this step to improve efficiency and make the process more cost-effective.

The Case Review Board and the Policy Review Board are currently being reorganized into a single Archdiocesan Review Board. This reorganized board, which will include former members of the Case Review Board and the Policy Review Board, will be responsible for advising me on policies and, when needed, reviewing any new cases that come forward.

If those who purchased the advertisement in your magazine had taken the time to contact local representatives of Voice of the Faithful, they could have corrected this error themselves prior to publication.

(Most Rev.) Alexander J. Brunett

Arts & CultureBooks
Willie at War
Andrew M. Greeley
It has been 90 years since the beginning of the Great War in 1914 longer than the time between Fort Sumter and Pearl Harbor To write about it now is to do history not passionate political attack of the kind Erich Maria Remarque launched in his All Quiet on the Western Front when the war was fres
News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
New Lay Group Formed to Improve Church ManagementA group of U.S. Catholic bishops and lay church and business leaders announced on March 14 the formation of a group to be called the National Leadership Round-table on Church Management.Its goal is to help Catholic dioceses and parishes improve admini
Catholics and Jews: Healing the Wounds
Audrey Doetzel
Catholic Christianity’s understanding of and relationship with Judaism and the Jewish people was radically transformed by the the Second Vatican Council’s declaration, “The Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions.” On Oct. 28, 1965, Nostra Aetate formally declared t
Faith in Focus
Easter: A Child's-Eye View
Lorraine V. Murray
In the black-and-white photo, my sister and I stand side by side, looking tanned from the Miami sun. We are decked out in crisp Easter finery, complete with straw hats. We are bursting with pride, because in our hands we are cradling something that for us represented the essence of Easter joy: two v
Arts & CultureBooks
New Life in Lima
George M. Anderson
This slender but powerful book describes how an upper-middle-class parish in Lima Peru was transformed in concert with the poor people in its midst largely through the efforts of its founding pastor The pastor who is also the author of Birth of a Church Joseph Nangle O F M recounts how this
Self-Hating Humanity?
John F. Kavanaugh
In the fantasy novel That Hideous Strength, a young social scientist, hoping to break into the inner circle of the prestigious National Institute for Coordinated Experiments (acronym: NICE) discovers that the goal of the institute is to eliminate organic life. Filostrato, a physiologist who hates tr
The Myth of Reform: Tougher Is Better
Cecilio Morales
Hours after the 109th Congress convened in early January, Republican majority leaders delivered this startling notice: they intend to transform public aid to the poor into a compulsory work program that offers little opportunity for recipients to lift themselves from poverty. This transformation was
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
John W. Donohue
François de La Rochefoucauld, a 16th-century French aristocrat, made a name for himself by writing tough-minded epigrams that he called maxims. In one of these philosophical wisecracks he noted: “Death and the sun are not to be looked at steadily.” All the same, there are some people wh
Editorials
The Weight of Glory
The Editors
C. S. Lewis compared the risen life to the lightness of an early summer morning when we feel one with sunlight and the gentle air. Of such a morning he wrote in The Weight of Glory, We do not want merely to see beauty...we want to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into
FaithVantage Point
The legacy of Teilhard de Chardin: A French Jesuit’s radical fusion of science and spirituality
Thomas M. King
Teilhard was striving for sanctity by working in science, and this effort would require a new understanding of what it means to be holy.
Letters
Letters

Missed the Mark

In reviewing Million Dollar Baby (Of Clay and Wattles Made, 2/14), Richard A. Blake, S.J., surprised me by the reference to this intelligent, compassionate priest. I felt that the ordinary, everyday pastoral ministry of the priest sure missed the mark in this film.

(Rev.) Eugene F. McGovern

Remembering Teilhard: From March 28, 2005
Thomas M. King
A Jesuit who strove for sanctity by working in science