In 1996 Jack Miles won the Pulitzer Prize for biography with a learned gripping semi-plausible flight of fancy Since the Hebrew Bible is doubtlessamong other thingsa collection of stories about a figure or figures Elohim Yahweh El Shaddai etc whom Westerners have agreed to call God Miles p

Synod RoundupCalling the Synod of Bishops that met in October almost a new beginning for the church, Pope John Paul II urged bishops to promote church teaching courageously and work for church unity. During a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at the closing of the synod on Oct. 27, the pope praise

Anational symposium titled Breaking New Ground in Mission was held in Shillong, India, from July 5 to 9, 2001, in which leading missiologists, pastors and experts participated. At the symposium the conviction was widespread that we cannot have any meaningful discourse on mission evangelization witho

T C Boyle rsquo s collected short stories 1998 amply confirmed his impressive imagination and facility with language and narration In these 16 new ones nine of which appeared in The New Yorker in recent years Boyle again displays his ease in entering the minds of his principal characters and

Christians believe there is life after death, but that does not mean they take death lightly. Like everyone else, they learn sooner or later why St. Paul called death the last enemy to be destroyed. Paul also said that Christians should not mourn for those who have died like people who have no hope,

Whether we want them or not, birthdays roll around once a year on the very same day. They serve as signposts for our journey through life—or, as some might term them, mortality markers. At America House we celebrate birthdays for staff and community members on the fourth Thursday of each month

Laurence Sterne was a novelist a clergyman and briefly a farmer in the rough-and-tumble 18th century an era when the remedy for cattle plague was thought to be a pint of gin for the cattle not for the beleaguered farmer In his letters sermons and above all in his comic masterpiece The Life a

Human Rights Lawyer in Mexico Shot DeadA former nun who was one of Mexico’s leading human rights lawyers was shot dead in Mexico City on Oct. 19 in what authorities were calling a politically motivated killing. Digna Ochoa Placido, head of the legal defense department at Jesuit-run Miguel Augu

Attendance at church on Sunday is significantly down from what it was years ago. The absence of so many, especially young people, indicates that the liturgy they experience is too often out of touch. They are used to an interactive, media-saturated environment at work and at play, yet they come to c

The country was in an uproar. Hidden somewhere in the midst of the civilian population, indeed, in the midst of the capital itselfthe capital of the strongest nation in the worldwere young men armed with grievances and bombs. They had entered the country legally and were organized in small cells des

At his 80th birthday party last year, celebrated with dozens of friends in the garden of his home in northwestern Connecticut, Isaac Stern asked me to sit next to him at dinner. Rarely have I felt so honored. His luminous personality represented to me the perfect combination of a monumentally succes

Dry Bones Rattling is a study of the community-organizing work of the Industrial Areas Foundation I A F in Texas and the Southwest The title comes from the story of Ezekiel in the valley of the dry bones the broken and dispirited community of Israel As Ezekiel prophesied the bones rattled and

A case currently before the California Supreme Court, Catholic Charities of Sacramento Inc. v. The Superior Court of Sacramento County (Department of Managed Health Care et al.), deals with that state’s Women’s Contraception Equity Act of 1999. It is attracting a good deal of attention a

Letters to the Editor Real CollegialityFor the last five years I have served with the presbyterate described by the Rev. James F. Garneau in “More Priestly Fraternity” (10/22). The priests of Raleigh are uncommonly united, centrist and admirable for their dedication in the swirl of explo

Catholics contribute less money to their parish than the members of nearly any other church in the United States. This has been confirmed by every study of religious giving in the last 15 years. In fact, the general rule of thumb is that the typical Catholic household contributes about half as much

No lover of film could dislike this book No one will read it cover to cover at least at one sitting but you can take long ambles in it and come away deeply refreshed and richly informed Searching for John Ford is well researched and well written This is no small feat for often these two traits

In the Gospel of John (20:19-23) Jesus appeared to his fearful disciples after the resurrection and uttered the words “Peace be with you.” He then showed the disciples his hands and his side. In this account of the resurrection, Jesus connected the experience of peace or shalom with an a

Absolute PacifismStephen T. Krupa, S.J., is right to emphasize Dorothy Day’s absolute pacifism, to which she held even during World War II (“Celebrating Dorothy Day,” 8/27). But I’m not sure that the pacifism of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. also deserve that char