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Books
Choose Life
John B. Breslin
John L rsquo Heureux began his career as a novelist writing about leaving the priesthood in the 70 rsquo s in Tight White Collar and The Clang Birds I was then America rsquo s literary editor and the magazine published reviews of both of them The second book was reviewed by Doris Grumbach as I r
Vatican II: Official Norms
John W. OMalley
In his recent article in America (2/24), Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., very helpfully called our attention to six norms for interpreting the Second Vatican Council that were issued as part of the final report of the Synod of Bishops in 1985, the 20th anniversary of the conclusion of the council. Card
Lectio Divina: Contemporary Catholics on Traditional Devotions
Daniel J. Harrington
Lectio divina is Latin for spiritual reading. It is a method of reading and praying on Scripture and other classics of spirituality like Augustine’s Confessions and The Imitation of Christ. It has deep roots in the history of monasticism. There are four basic steps in lectio divina: reading (W
Politics & SocietyEditorials
In the Iraq War, do Americans have to choose between God and country?
The Editors
With the exception of some Southern Baptist leaders and mega-church pastors, nearly all U.S. churches are opposing war with Iraq. This has forced many Americans to wonder if loyalty to God and country are now in conflict. Must they choose between the military adventures of their president and the mo
Columns
This Valley of Tears
Valerie Schultz
Two friends have taken their own lives within a short time: one by consuming more of the drugs that were killing her anyway; the other, also enslaved to drugs, who hastened his death with a bullet. The phone rings: there has been a suicide. A life is ended. Just like that.The avoidability of these d
Majesty Above the HeavensHas religion kept up with the expanding universe?
Robert North
The Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths, all principally focused on the Mediterranean world, were based on a conviction that the marvel and complexity of their world required a planner, a creator, of superhuman power. Gradually, as these religions expanded and developed, they recognized that this pl
Our Lady of Guadalupe: Contemporary Catholics on Traditional Devotions
Eric Stoltz
Here in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los ángeles, The City of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels, a city most people know as Los Angeles, one cannot go long without encountering Our Lady of Guadalupe. She gazes tranquilly from the stucco walls of convenience stores, from the black dashboards
Vatican II: Substantive Teaching
Avery Dulles
I appreciate the invitation of the editors of America to respond to the article in this issue by John W. O’Malley, S.J., “Vatican II: Official Norms,” and to the very substantive letters published on March 17 commenting on my own article “Vatican II: The Myth and the Reality
Film
Certainly Chicago: Chicago
Richard A. Blake
In October 1927, with the release of “The Jazz Singer,” sound movies became commercially viable. In October 1929 the stock market crashed. Strange as it seems, the two events are closely related in cultural history. During the final two years of the boom, the movie industry had the money
The Just War Case for the War
George Weigel
It didn’t happen in France, when the question recently was what to do about chaos in Côte d’Ivoire. It didn’t happen in the European Union in the 1990’s, when the questions were genocide in Rwanda and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. But it did happen in the United States: for we
Books
A Basque Legacy
Terrence E. Dempsey
In a story carried by National Public Radio on Jan 2 2003 the correspondent Silvia Poggioli reported that 27 years after the death of Francisco Franco there is increasing interest in Spain in uncovering the brutal history of the Franco dictatorship It would seem then that the appearance of th
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
George M. Anderson
Lent for me evokes the memory of a semi-darkened church on the upper west side of Manhattan. During a Good Friday evening service there 30 years ago, a young man rose from a nearby pew and read a passage from Elie Wiesel’s Night (1958)—an autobiographical account of his experience as a t
Contemporary Catholics on Traditional Devotions
James Martin, S.J.
This series for Lent and Easter focuses on the world of devotions in the life of contemporary believers. America asked a number of writers, many of them younger Catholics, to speak about a favorite devotionits history, its place in the writer’s life and its possible role in the life of contemp
Letters
Letters
Our readers

Right to Life

Your editorial on gun control (2/10) misses the value of firearms in preserving human life. Just as we support the right to life of the unborn and the elderly, the lives of bus and cab drivers, gas station attendants and convenience store clerks are equally precious. Such people often must work at night in dangerous urban or even rural areas, becoming easy targets for predators, whom the courts and law enforcement cannot control.

Each year between one and two million armed Americans defend themselves and their families from injury, sexual assault and death, often without even firing their guns. Would you prefer to condemn them to submit to the savagery of criminals by disarming them?

The solution to violent crime involving firearms and other deadly weapons is to get the criminals who carry or use them in crimes off our streets by long prison sentences. Imposing liability standards on cities, police, judges, parole boards and probation officers would inhibit the Turn Them Loose Bruce types from releasing dangerous felons into the population. The prospect of million-dollar lawsuits by victims and their families would make our society far safer than any gun control scheme that merely keeps decent people helpless in the face of violent criminals.

William J. Brennan

News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Confessional Seal Under Attack In Several StatesThe crisis in the U.S. Catholic Church caused by the scandal of sexual abuse by clergy has sparked a variety of state legislative initiatives to strengthen child abuse laws, including efforts in five states to force a priest to violate the seal of conf
Contemporary Catholics on Traditional Devotions
James Martin, S.J.
Traditional devotions can provoke a wide variety of reactions among contemporary Catholics. For many, the devotional life discovered during childhood has never lost its appeal. For some it has always remained on the fringes of their Catholicism. For still others it seems inconsistent with a mature f
Letters
Letters
Our readers

Spread the Faith

Dr. Richard J. Rodeheffer’s article (2/3) is superb. The obvious influence of the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum is most refreshing. As significant is Dr. Rodeheffer’s faith rekindled in essence: don’t keep the faith, but spread it.

Hugh J. Mullin

Whither the Just War?
Drew Christiansen
It was a bold move. With numerous Vatican officials and Pope John Paul II himself vigorously voicing criticism of a possible war with Iraq, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See and former Republican national chairman, Jim Nicholson, invited Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute in Washin
Books
Excavating Plato
Gerald T. Cobb
The comedian Steve Martin once quipped that the problem with studying philosophy in college is that later in life one always remembers just enough of it to make one rsquo s conscience uncomfortable In his new novel The Cave Nobel laureate Jos eacute Saramago hearkens back to perhaps the best kno
Film
While Warsaw Burns: The Pianist
Richard A. Blake
Imagine one of those unspeakably beautiful September mornings in New York, with sunlight shouldering its way across the East River, nudging the bridges and skyscrapers and striding into the concrete canyons of Lower Manhattan. The air itself energizes office workers pouring into Manhattan from Queen