‘Is there any place on campus where they recite the Liturgy of the Hours?” The two undergraduates who popped into the sacristy after one of those tiny mid-morning, midweek gatherings for Eucharist in a university chapel took me by surprise. Why would two young women want to squeeze one m

A few years ago the Episcopal bishop of Newark John Shelby Spong penned a book entitled Why Christianity Must Change or Die Spong argued that Christianity would inevitably decline unless it abandoned much of its traditional belief system A few decades hence we may regard Spong rsquo s prediction

From our archives, 2003.

It is Saturday morning, and I am standing in front of the open refrigerator, surveying the contents, while my mind hurtles into a familiar routine. I had fried fish for lunch yesterday, I reflect, and a sundae after dinner. The conclusion is swift and ruthless. Instead of French toast or a bagel wit

Perhaps it was just coincidence that on the very day I was fuming about a syndicated column I had just read by George Weigel, I received a plea from a Catholic woman in Canada. I was going to let Weigel’s defense of pre-emptive war on Iraq pass, but Rose Marie Loria’s letter changed my m

Casting a dark look over the past year, and an even darker look at what lies ahead, the U.S. mayors’ annual Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness predicts a rise in both throughout the country—an increase that, sadly, is already well under way. Released in December, the report, which

For an on-the-ground feel for the Holy Land and the high stakes it holds for the world rsquo s three great religions Judaism Christianity and Islam Bruce Feiler rsquo s book Walking the Bible is the next best thing to being there The journalist-author takes readers on a guided tour of the first

Vatican Opposition to War Based on Morality and Political RealitiesThe Vatican’s opposition to a war against Iraq is based on political realism as well as moral arguments, a leading Vatican official said. “From the outside, we may seem like idealists, and we are, but we are also realists

Each day The New York Times, like most newspapers, publishes a television listing that includes a rundown of the day’s movies. But unlike most newspapers, the Times offers its own quirky assessments of these films, with an admirable economy of words.The paper’s reviewers are generous to

A reflection on American democracy and "the truth of the human person"

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, issued on Jan. 16 a document, dated Nov. 24, 2002, entitled “Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life.” The note addresses some of the m

Alice McDermott rsquo s fiction like William Kennedy rsquo s is to be praised if for no other reason than that it transcends the tradition of Irish-American fiction established by James T Farrell back in the 1930 rsquo s Since Studs Lonigan first swaggered onto the literary stage Irish-America

The intractable question of allowing affirmative action to be used in the selection of students for college admission will finally be settled by the United States Supreme Court. Two cases involving plaintiffs denied admission at the University of Michigan, allegedly because they are white, will be d

Imagine a dark winter morning. A line of poorly dressed men—black, white, Latino—stretches alongside a 1920’s brick building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The building is the Holy Name Centre, and the men, most of them homeless, are waiting to take showers in the center&rsqu

At a time when the news is saturated with stories about corporate malfeasance it is salutary to recall that the corporate quest for profits can sometimes lead to injury and death In Five Past Midnight in Bhopal Dominique Lapierre and Javier Moro resurrect the story of Bhopal India where in 1984