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For most of us, the legal system seems something far away. We know of lawyers and lawsuits, crime and punishment. The law keeps things going smoothly, maintains order and apparently insures that justice is served. At least apparently. I’ve had the usual contact: parking tickets, traffic violat
Members of the United States Congress never are in a position to support the legalization of abortion, because in 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court legalized it by raw judicial power. The Supreme Court’s imposition does not, however, require those measures conducive to abortion that many members of
The Word
At first glance ancient Israel rsquo s insistence on being the chosen people of God may appear to be somewhat arrogant A closer look however reveals that again and again the people admitted that they did not merit this distinction Far from it They were not slow to own up to their own inconstan
Books
Invariably reviewers of writings by the Rev Andrew Greeley feel obliged to mention how much he writes which is a lot Few bother to note how certain basic themes run like threads through his work particularly when Greeley reflects on the mountain of data he has produced over a very long career a
Editorials
The American story has been the “story of flawed and fallible people united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals,” said President George W. Bush in his inaugural address of Jan. 20, 2001. The theme of a united people also ran through the keynote speech of Illinois senatori
The elegant Beaux-arts lobby, with its high ceiling and oak paneled walls, held only a few people early that morning: three 60-ish men seated before the big windows overlooking East 28th Street in Lower Manhattan. It might have been a fashionable club. But the men were not elegantly dressed, and the
FaithFaith in Focus
The days were lengthening. Daylight itself seemed brighter. The sap was rising in the trees, and with it I felt the wanderlust rising in me.
Books
This book takes its title from an observation made by Thomas Jefferson in 1816 ldquo Old Europe will have to lean on our shoulders and to hobble along by our side under the monkish trammels of priests and kings as she can What a colossus shall we be rdquo Niall Ferguson professor of financia
News
Battle of Sexes Not Part of God’s DesignThe battle of the sexes and, particularly, the subjugation of women are the result of original sin and not of God’s original design for creation, said a document released by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Attempts to advance the ca
As I was hurrying through a popular bookstore during the winter holiday rush, my attention was caught by the cover of a prominently displayed book, Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet. The work is a sequel to Frances Moore Lappe’s appeal to Americans in the early 1970’s t
Letters
Stark Reality
Thank you for printing the picture with the caption Mother feeds malnourished child in Signs of the Times on July 5. I simply stopped and stared, disturbed and saddened. Having breast-fed all three of my children, I want to cry with and for the mother in the picture, knowing she is not providing the milk that every ounce of her mind, body and soul wants to produce for her child. I was disappointed in myself for daily agonizing over what food to make for dinner, rather than simply being grateful that I even have food available. As disturbing as the picture is, I’ll put it on our fridge, next to our kids’ artwork, made in their secure little world. It will call me to gratefulness and humility.
Thanks, America, for showing and reminding me of the stark reality hungry breast-feeding mothers and their children face daily.
Amy Giorgio
Books
With these two books of translated sonnets one under its own label and one through a subsidiary Farrar Straus and Giroux tightens its claim to a place on the top rung of literary publishers The sonnet is about as much in vogue these days as the gavotte but we have to admire the great practition
Of Many Things
I have poor circulation, and that makes my ankles swell,” said the woman in front of me, speaking in the soft accents of “the islands.” A heavy-set person in her 50’s, she explained this as we sat on our bags early one morning at the Port Authority bus terminal in New York Ci
As I get older, I continue to discover that many of the beliefs I cherished as a child were not really truths. They were, rather, proverbs my Irish mother used to say to encourage her daughters to behave appropriately. Because of a letter I received during the past Easter season, I was reminded of t
When we think about politics and the parish, we generally think about policy advocacy - for example, the pre-election-year statements of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, like Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic Call to Political Responsibility(October 2003), or letter-writing campaigns conducte
FaithThe Word
People of every religious faith should be able to recognize God’s goodness in the way we live our lives and interact with them.
Books
In this richly documented and thoroughly engaging memoir Joseph A Califano Jr recalls his years in Washington as a member of several administrations and as a partner in a powerful law firm From this vantage point Califano observed and participated in the national crises and unsettling cultural c
Editorials
The disaster unfolding in the Darfur region of Sudan shines a spotlight once again on the plight of refugees and internally displaced persons. The Sudanese government has stood by as Arab Janjaweed militias engaged in the systematic destruction of Darfurian villages and water sources. Thirty thousan
FaithOpinion
I was raised a Catholic. I know in my bones that I would not hold the views I hold today if it were not for the values I learned in Catholic school. I am, I think it is fair to say, a Midwestern, populist progressive in the tradition of Robert LaFollette, George Norris and Theodore Roosevelt. Their