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Letters
Letters
Our readers

Cautionary Note

Thank you for publishing Thomas A. Shannon’s clear and concise article (2/18) about the complex moral and ethical issues surrounding attempts at human cloning to obtain stem cells for therapeutic use, and the related question of induced parthenogenic cell division of human eggs for the same purpose. This article documents the need for care and caution by the scientific community in continuing such research and, importantly, emphasizes the very preliminary stage of our knowledge in the use of stem cells. Implied also is a cautionary note for the magisterium in its authoritative pronouncements about the beginning of human life, when it fails to consider at all the advances in the science of embryology over the last several decades. I hope we can all benefit from the expertise of Professor Shannon and his colleagues.

Robert M. Rowden

Faith in Focus
Taking It With Me: Mercy's Grace at Work in the Public Schools
Amy Gibson
After a 24-year teaching career in Catholic education, 20 of those years with the Sisters of Mercy at Mercy High School in Baltimore, I took a big risk and leapt to the public schools. I had always wanted to round out my career with a stint in public education. My move back to my family home in sout
Books
A Living Narrative
Edward Curtin
This is a brilliant complex and compelling analysis of emotions and their significance in personal and social life Like most philosophical writing however it is written in an academically analytical style that will limit its readership This is unfortunate and deeply ironic for Nussbaum is a ma
FaithThe Word
Joyful and Subversive Memory
John R. Donahue
He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave (Phil. 2:7)
The Case of Sufiyatu Huseini in Nigeria
Michael OSullivan
On Oct. 9, 2001, an Islamic law court in the State of Sokoto in northern Nigeria ordered Safiyatu Huseini Tungar Tudu to be buried up to her head and shoulders and stoned to death. Sufiya had been found guilty of having sexual intercourse outside marriage. Her child, Adama, 8 months old at the time
The Future Church
Joseph Claude Harris
Peter Drucker, writing in the Nov. 3, 2001, issue of The Economist, described a revolution that will cause a restructuring of European and American economies and cultures for much of this century. In the developed countries, the dominant factor in the next society will be something to which most peo
FaithExplainer
Whatever happened to limbo?
Gerald M. Fagin
Nowhere in the current catechism is there any treatment of a belief that was part of the common teaching of the church for over 700 years.
Books
The God of No Return
John Omicinski
Economics has dabbled in theology from its beginnings Two centuries ago Adam Smith the father of economics got the theological ball rolling with his assertion that prices were determined by the Invisible Hand of competition in the market Karl Marx rsquo s theory of capital was that it was a reli
Profiling
Philip R. Sullivan
Shortly after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, I went to an automobile garage and was greeted by a bearded man of Middle Eastern appearance who asked in a foreign accent how he could be of help. Rather abruptly, I was seized by a disagreeable feeling, along with the urge to say “Forget it.&r
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
John W. Donohue
Nearly 100,000 new books were published in the United States last year, and most of them were ignored by The New York Review of Books and the Sunday book sections of The New York Times and The Washington Post. Although these three are heavyweights in the book review business, they have space to exam
Columns
Some Solace
Terry Golway
A kindly police officer stationed at the corner of Liberty Street and Greenwich Street in downtown Manhattan warned me about ground zero. “It’s really muddy there,” he said. “And you’re wearing good shoes.” I don’t own a pair of “good” shoes, as
Editorials
The Bush Doctrine
The Editors
When Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, the problem of the Barbary pirates was waiting for him. These Moorish privateers, outfitted in Algeria, Morocco, Tripoli and Tunis, were prowling the seas off the North African coast as their predecessors had done for two centuries. They plundered Brit
The Word
The Gift of Life at Death's Door
John R. Donahue
Death has been too much our companion in recent months near us not only in the disaster of Sept 11 but in molten lava submerging a village crumbling houses in Turkey and a horrendous fire in Lagos Death walks with Jesus in today rsquo s Gospel as he moves in measured pace toward his suffering a
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
George M. Anderson
You may have noticed in a recent issue of America (2/25) a listing of retreat houses around the country, sponsored by both Jesuits and others. (The list will be kept up to date on America’s Web site.) Jesuits generally make an annual retreat of six to eight days, and while the specific purpose
Editorials
Refugees on Hold
The Editors
A sharp cutoff in refugee admissions represents one of the lesser noted repercussions of September’s terrorist attacksa repercussion with dangerous ramifications for the more than 20,000 refugees who had already been approved for entry into the United States before the attacks. Many were fleei
News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
'Underdogs’ Winning in Congress, Rural Life Advocates SayRural life and family-farm advocates say they are winning the legislative fight on the 2002 farm bill, but the game is not yet over. "We’re in the third quarter of [debate on] this year’s farm bill. We’re the u
Letters
Letters
Our readers

This Mess

Your editorial about sexual abuse by priests (2/18) reminds me that the past secrecy of our bishops in this matter is somewhat analogous to the Nixon administration’s coverup of Watergate. The Watergate break-in was bad enough, but the coverup made Nixon’s White House lose whatever credibility it once had.

The church hierarchy too has made matters much worse by refusing to recognize the problem of priests who prey on youngsters. Some of the same bishops who complain about the lack of vocations to the priesthood are the very ones guilty of covering up this horrible scandal.

Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk is to be applauded for his courageous stand on this issue. But mere guidelines and apologies are not enough. What is needed during this Lenten season is an honest and sincere appraisal of how we got to this woeful state of affairs and how we are going to extricate ourselves from this mess.

Edward J. Thompson

Child Marriage in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Andrew Bushell
Entering the Kacha Ghari Afghan refugee camp, filled as it is with mud buildings reinforced by straw and dung baked to a brown-pink terra-cotta by the harsh Central Asian sunlight, is like walking into the 14th century. Turbaned shopkeepers hawk wares from pushcarts and lean-tos, meat crawling with
Columns
Of Cobwebs and Kin
Valerie Schultz
When I was home with my four baby birds, I used to say, When I go back to work, I want a cleaning service. Just one day a week. Let someone else scrub the shower and wipe the dog’s nose prints from its glass door. I will pay handsomely. I hated housework. Somehow during our nesting years, it b