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Letters
Spiritual Journey
Many thanks for the wonderful two-part Faith in Focus article by James Martin, S.J., on his experiences at Lourdes. While reading of the faith experiences of other pilgrims was inspiring, I especially appreciated reading Father Martin’s honest reflections on his own spiritual journey. He made a somewhat reluctant visit to Lourdes, only to find that un-nameable, intuitive something that stayed with him, and his experience blossomed into the prayerful and engaging song of hope published here (8/2, 8/16).
His story reminds me of a young woman we know about who also made a journey and upon recognizing that intuitive something, leapt into her own song of hope and triumph: My soul does glorify the Lord, my being rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. Father Martin has reminded us, quietly and powerfully, that God still looks with favor on his lowly servants, that we still call the young woman blessed, and that Holy is his name. Thanks for the refreshing journey.
Elizabeth Thecla Mauro
Books
James Gustave Speth dean and professor at Yale University rsquo s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies has written a lively conversational and yet very substantial examination of the failures of global environmental governance to date and an exploration of prospects for the future of the
News
Vatican Dismayed Over Memo on CommunionWhen Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sent out a brief memo in June about politicians and Communion, he probably never imagined it would ignite a heated discussion about Catholics and voting. The document, leaked to an Italian reporter but never officially acknowledge
I entered St. Peter’s Basilica yesterday just after the gates swung open at seven in the morning and found myself drawn to the altar of Blessed John XXIII. Each day a priest preaches there who does everything wrong and everything right. He didn’t disappoint me. Having once taught homilet
Books
In The Thing in the Forest the opening story of A S Byatt rsquo s latest collection two young girls evacuated during the last war to the English countryside witness a monstrous creature in a sunlit wood Rolling toward them devouring everything in their path comes a grotesque worm that appea
Of Many Things
Sports physiologists talk of slow-twitch and quick-twitch muscles. Slow-twitch muscles are fit for events like weightlifting, quick-twitch muscles for sprinting. The world seems increasingly built for quick-twitchers. Video games raise the reaction times of young people to levels that even Tom Cruis
When hundreds of supporters of the Tikkun community from over 200 Congressional districts walked the halls of Congress in the spring of 2003 and again in 2004, urging a new “middle path” for U.S. Middle East policy that would be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, our elected leaders freq
By now, people all over the world have seen the horrifying pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused and ridiculed by U.S. soldiers. The question in the hearts of most Americans, as they look at these degrading pictures, is probably, How could young American men and women do such horrible things? The
Books
Novels inspired by great works of art are hardly novel but in the past several years their number seems to be growing Tracy Chevalier can claim some credit for the increase since her Girl With a Pearl Earring proved to be both a best-seller and the inspiration for a successful film and her secon
The Word
We may think that leprosy known today as Hansen rsquo s disease is an ancient affliction that has been eradicated from today rsquo s society In fact the current World Health Organization considers it one of the major health problems in developing countries But what is called leprosy in the Bibl
Books
Scott Stossel rsquo s uplifting biography of R Sargent Shriver deserves a prominent place on the reading lists of Catholic studies programs It is an inspiring and skillfully told story of a bright American hero whose public-minded outlook and optimism finds its source in his Catholic faith Stossel
Of Many Things
A cork-lined room—that was Marcel Proust’s way of coping with the street noises of early 20th century Paris while he was writing his classic, Remembrance of Things Past. But what about present-day New York City? The City Council issued a report late last year warning that subways are so
We made it through the Olympics without it happening. We got through the Democratic National Convention without it. And we’ve survived the Republican convention as well. What is it? Islamofacist Terrorism, if you prefer an incendiary phrase, or Internal Terror, if you are concentrated on the d
Politics & Society
In recent years a better understanding of American history has gradually moved the U.S. Supreme Court away from a strict separationist perspective on church and state and toward a greater accommodation of religion.
Faith
How has the church traditionally dealt with political figures who have run afoul of the church, or at least of churchmen?
Books
The good life in The Good Life is brittle fragile ironic impermanent And it is often Catholic In these 11 short stories Erin McGraw author of three books and professor of creative writing at Ohio State University watches hears and records contemporary America in 15-page snatches She drops i
The Word
We don rsquo t hear much about faith nowadays except faith in ourselves Ours is a culture of self-reliance and self-determination However if we are honest with ourselves we will have to admit that we are all burdened with a measure of self-doubt mdash not necessarily the unhealthy kind of self-
Editorials
Tuberculosis is a disease of the poor that thrives in crowded, unsanitary settings. Although it is still found in the United States in prisons and homeless shelters, by the 1980’s it had largely disappeared from the general population in the industrialized countries of the North. But now it ha
In 1960, millions of Catholics voted for John F. Kennedy for little reason other than that he was a Catholic. In 2004, millions of Catholics, myself included, will vote enthusiastically for George W. Bush because this Texas Methodist has a clearer understanding of, and a more serious commitment to,