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America' in the College Classroom
Doris Donnelly
In our electronic, computerized, digital world, it was refreshing for me recently to discover once again the power of the printed word, specifically the words printed in a magazine like the one you are holding in your hands or are reading on America’s Web site.I teach at John Carroll, the Jesu
Books
Big Apple: Hold the Caramel
Kathy O'Connell
Journalism can be a difficult and tricky trade for those whose heads are on straight and whose hearts are in the right places It is hard to get past the people those looking for decent housing the immigrants who seem to hold so much of the rest of this country up on their brave and persevering sho
The Word
Look What Blew Into Town
Dianne Bergant
The blowing wind is a mysterious phenomenon It cannot be seen but its effects are constantly around us In the summer it can be a cooling touch on the skin while in the winter it can slap one hard in the face It carries the seeds that will eventually germinate into new forms of life yet it can
News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Judge Says Bishops Manipulated Review BoardThe head of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ National Review Board on sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy said on May 11 that a letter she wrote to the head of the bishops’ conference on March 29 prompted the U.S. bishops to decide they wil
Feeling the Pain
Raymond A. Schroth, S.J.
The first step in teaching moral values to young journalists is to get them to feel pain—not their pain, the pain of others. From that, other virtues—compassion, skepticism, courage and the like—might follow. But virtue is getting harder to teach. Last spring two news stories force
Faith in Focus
The Jesuits Are Too Liberal
Raymond D. Aumack
The other evening, I was canvassing classmates for donations to the annual fund for the Jesuit high school I attended. A classmate I called said he would not make a contribution because he felt the Jesuits were too liberal. Whenever I hear something like that, I have a tendency to back off. We gradu
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
George M. Anderson
They say you can stay on the subway all night.” So commented a middle-aged homeless man to me on a particularly cold evening at a subway station in the Manhattan neighborhood of East Harlem. Warmly bundled up myself, I was sitting on a bench facing the tracks and noticed him because he was sta
Voting Conscience
John F. Kavanaugh
Over the past few weeks I have had friends plead with me, Please don’t vote for Nader again. You will be giving the vote to Bush. You will be giving the vote to Kerry. There’s my problem: I don’t want to give my vote to either of them. Such words could infuriate readers as well as
Germany's Unwelcome Guests
Paul J. Fitzgerald
Freed nearly a decade and a half ago from its dividing and restraining wall, Berlin has largely succeeded in moving beyond the siege mentality of the cold war period. It has become once again not only the political capital of Germany but a cultural center of gravity for Europe as well, especially in
Books
Jump-Starting the Parish
John Gillespie
A few years ago when Paul Wilkes wrote Excellent Catholic Parishes The Guide to Best Places and Practices and later when he penned Excellent Protestant Congregations he was not primarily interested in theory trends or statistics Rather he observed the approaches and programs in several hundr
Editorials
Fifty Years of Progress
The Editors
On May 17, 1954, neither the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, nor anyone else, could have predicted that 50 years later both the U.S. secretary of state and the president’s national security advisor would be African-Americans. But on that Monday morning, the court announced its decisio
Magazine
Catholics and Candidates
Matt Malone, S.J.
Senator John F. Kennedy walked into the grand ballroom of Houston’s Rice Hotel with one goal: to put to rest the notion that a Roman Catholic should not be elected president of the United States. It was September 1960, and many Americans were wary of electing a Catholic. Most non-Catholics vie
The Word
Dream the Impossible Dream
Dianne Bergant
We might be tempted to laugh at the naive optimism of Don Quixote who though considered ridiculous saw himself as a champion of the vulnerable But is he really so far removed from us As children we may have envisioned ourselves as an astronaut hero Miss America or the batter who wins the Worl
Against Tobacco, For Life
Michael H. Crosby
In August 2003, thousands of tobacco-control and health advocates converged upon Helsinki, Finland, for the 11th World Conference on Tobacco or Health. I was the only “official” Roman Catholic attending. Three months later, in mid-December 2003, I attended the National Conference on Toba
Books
Two-Part Harmony
Kathleen Sprows Cummings
American Catholics and Civic Engagement is the first of two volumes published by American Catholics in the Public Square a three-year project funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts Peter Steinfels rsquo introduction sketches the historical background behind the ongoing struggle of Roman Catholics to
News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Canon Law on Sanctions Leaves Much to Interpret People on one side ask why bishops don’t stop certain Catholic politicians from receiving Communion or even excommunicate them.Aren’t they openly defying church teaching on the most important subjectthe right to life? If such politicians do
Can the Church Learn From Wal-Mart?
Frederick W. Gluck
With over one million employees, the Catholic Church in the United States is comparable in size to Wal-Mart, but it still follows a feudal model of governance and management. This may be adequate to protect religious orthodoxy, but it is not equal to the task of managing a worldwide enterprise that
Letters
Letters
Our readers

Means to Solidarity

How is it possible that so few Americans are aware of the horror in northern Uganda: since 1988, nearly 20,000 children abducted, more than one million civilians living away from their homes in squalid camps? Thank you for trying to inform them (Child Soldiers and the Lord’s Resistance Army, 3/29).

Thanks too for Rwanda Ten Years Later (4/19) and your editorial urging the need for the American public to be better informed about African politics. The U.S. bishops argued for such self-education and involvement in public policy in their November 2001 A Call to Solidarity with Africa. Unfortunately, very few American Catholics, even professionals in ministry, seem to have heard of this. A student in our Jesuit school in Bukavu, Congo, recently asked me, Why do your people know so little about us, when we know so much about America?

To counterbalance the usual bad news, your authors also highlight the hopeful antidotesso many beautiful, faith-filled people here who struggle daily to combat the heavy forces against them (including, too often, some from the civilized world). I long for the day when Africa begins to get the good attention that so many Americans gave to Latin America in the 1980’s. Africa also has heroic witnesses to the faith, even martyrs worthy of canonization. At a recent Mass in Rwanda, I heard the large, mostly young adult congregation singing, You are at the center of our lives; you are alive. Immediately after the genocide in 1994, the Africa bishops proclaimed, The Risen Christ Is Our Hope.

The U.S. bishops remind us of the power of prayer but go on to advocate more diocesan/parish twinning (including Catholic schools and retreat houses). For those to whom it applies, they call for more corporate responsibility and responsible investment. Could my company/investment somehow be making things even worse for those who are already poor? What about my country?

Finally, I have come to learn that there is no better means to solidarity than personal contact, trying to get to know some Africans in the United States or, even better, somewhere here.

Tony Wach, S.J.

Books
Sightings, Signs and Wonders
Robert McClory
It is difficult to imagine two books about the same subject more dissimilar than these Randall Sullivan rsquo s The Miracle Detective is a drawn-out tour de force rivaling The Da Vinci Code in length digressions and clues that ultimately don rsquo t go anywhere Lisa Schwebel rsquo s Apparitions
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Drew Christiansen
I was startled. One of my Jesuit confreres had just introduced me to a fellow graduate student, not by name but as “our superior.” We were classmates; we lived in a small community, but somehow I had turned from Drew into “Father Superior.” I was no longer an individual. I wa