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Editorials
As U.S. casualties mount and stories of military funerals compete for front-page attention with positive Pentagon assessments, the future of U.S. military action in Iraq threatens to become an issue in the presidential politics of the 2004 election year. Democratic candidates have already suggested
He was standing on the side of a rural road in Southern Arizona, about 50 miles from the Mexican border, where the Sonoran desert is dry, desolate and deadly. As I drove by, I could see he was holding up an empty water jug in his hand, asking for help. I kept driving for the next mile, but thought o
Faith in Focus
Esperanza is Spanish for hope, and one person whose presence has brought hope to Hispanic immigrants in Delaware’s poultry processing plants is Rosa álvarez. A Carmelite Sister of Charity who is herself an immigrant—from Spain, years ago—she is one of the founders of a commu
Books
Many academics seem to have the paranoid conviction that like Rodney Dangerfield they get no respect surrounded as they are by yahoo students apparatchik administrators Babbittish trustees and a clueless public that takes them for tenured radicals overpaid slackers summers off sabbaticals
As the bishops of the United States design new programs to prevent sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy, they also are seeking ways to deal with the human pain of victims. One bishop has washed a victim’s feet on Holy Thursday. Others have cried with victims. Some have prayed in sil
Letters
Rightly Ordered Loves
The headline of your interview with Archbishop Sean O’Malley, O.F.M.Cap., of Boston, To Love and to Pray (10/27), is inaccurate. The archbishop actually said, To pray and love. Getting our loves in order, keeping the sequence of the two tablets of the Commandments and remembering that first we love God and then all our neighbors is the heart of the religious endeavor. The bishop was quoting the office of the day and, if you check, you will see that St. John Vianney devoted his whole sermon on the prayer part of to pray and love. I think the good saint knew the order was important. I suspect a Franciscan archbishop appreciates the same.
David Pence, M.D.
Books
If we want to know whether a person is good we should ask neither what his or her beliefs are nor what he or she hopes for Rather we should ask what the person loves So taught St Augustine He was in good company of course since Jesus summarized morality as ldquo love God and love your neigh
Editorials
During the 19th century, Irish immigrants settled in Glens Falls, a small city along the upper reaches of the Hudson River in east central New York. The men supported their families by working in the city’s paper and textile mills. On their way home on payday they stopped off at a saloon for a
In the early 1950’s I mentioned to my Jesuit superiors that I would like to study clinical psychology. Their response (I paraphrase a bit) went something like this: “Good grief! Psychologists are terrible people! They hate the church and we hate them! Besides, priests know all that stuff
Film
The Charles River is English tweed and cappuccino from Starbucks. It splits the twin campuses of Harvard University and hosts the Head of the Charles Regatta, a band shell for the Boston Pops and fireworks on the Fourth of July, marinas for modest but assertively picturesque sailboats and a lovely p
Books
A recent poll of the 1 800 members of the National Academy of Sciences found that over 90 percent profess to being atheists or agnostics To these learned people the idea of God and the corresponding sense that we live in a meaningful universe is contrary to scientific understanding The combinatio
News
Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Called Vital Step’ For NationIn what a U.S. archbishop called a vital step in the right direction for our nation, President George W. Bush signed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act into law on Nov. 5 at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., attended by many Catholic leader
As secretary general of Caritas Jerusalem, Claudette Habesch sees first hand the impact of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the lives of individual Palestinians and their families. Her organization is a Catholic charity and a member of Caritas International. After speaking at the United Nations I
FaithThe Word
The liturgical year is a kind of journey through the mysteries of salvation.
Books
In her preface to Critical Essays on Joyce Carol Oates published 24 years ago the author wrote Once a literary work is published it passes forever out of the private and protective world of the writer rsquo s imagination and out of his or her possession It cannot be reclaimed These passive-voi
Of Many Things
An illustrated, 70-page advertising supplement lies inside my New York Times most Thursdays when I check my mailbox at America House. Called HOMES, it carries the subtitle “The Finest Luxury Properties in Manhattan and Around the World.” I live, however, not at America House on West 56th
Columns
It is hardly a secret that the American Catholic Church is in the news for reasons other than the wonderful work it does every day in communities across the nation. The church in general and its clergy in particular are suffering terribly from self-inflicted wounds that, regrettably, have served the
Books
Preaching to huge crowds in the 18th century the highly popular theologian Jonathan Edwards did not soften his rhetoric when it came time to describe the fate of humanity and its need for divine grace Natural men are held in the hand of God over the pit of hell They have deserved the fiery pit a
Editorials
Affordable housing for low-income families—seldom in the past few decades has this essential aspect of American life been harder to come by. Construction of new government-subsidized housing remains at a virtual standstill. High unemployment rates and increased nationwide poverty are exacerbat