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Faith-Based Community Development
Joseph R. Hacala
The media have given considerable attention in recent weeks to the engagement of the religious community in partnership with government in dealing with the ongoing effects of poverty in our country. Clearly, the announcement by President George W. Bush of a new White House Office of Faith-Based and
Editorials
Revisiting the Drug War
The Editors
The increasing number of drug offenders in prisons around the country is a major reason why our incarcerated population has reached the two million mark. Passed in the 1970’s, New York State’s so-called Rockefeller laws call for a penalty of 15 years for the sale of two ounces of a contr
The Word
A Different Conclave
John R. Donahue
A papal conclave is among the most solemn events in the Catholic Church replete with ancient rituals and contemporary media feeding frenzy Today rsquo s Gospel presents a unique conclave Jesus and his disciples at a fish fry by the Sea of Tiberias that unfolds in two acts In the first the risen
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
James Martin, S.J.
Sometimes it seems that it takes a layperson to understand religious life. Recently I had the chance to read a superb new book entitled For the Love of God: The Faith and Future of the American Nun, written by, of all people, a senior writer at GQ magazine, who was raised with no religious training
Letters
Letters
Our readers

Reasonable Expectations

While I found Bernard M. Daly’s article The Coming Synod of Bishops (4/2) interesting and challenging, it occurred to me that the synod of bishops he describes is not that set forth in Canons 342-48 of the Code of Canon Law. It is important, I think, that the synod of bishops, a sort of new institute since the Second Vatican Council, be clearly described so that its true functions can be understood and reasonable expectations be entertained for its work.

It seems to me that Bernard Daly might perhaps miss the mark when he appears to describe the synod of bishops as a mini-council. That it clearly is not. And it should be noted that it is a synod only by analogy with the synod as that institute has existed in church law.

The synod of bishops is to promote the close relationship between the Roman Pontiff and the bishops. These bishops, by their counsel, assist the Roman Pontiff in the defense and development of faith and morals and of the preservation and strengthening of ecclesiastical discipline. They also consider questions concerning the mission of the church in the world (No. 342). The function of the synod of bishops is to discuss the matters proposed to it and set forth recommendations. (No. 343).

(Most Rev.) Thomas G. Doran

News
Teaching Authentically
Thomas J. Gumbleton
Gerald Coleman’s article provides one more example of how far we must go before our church truly lives up to its teaching about homosexual persons. In their pastoral letter Always Our Children (1997), the U.S. Catholic bishops say: All in all, it is essential to recall one basic truth. God lov
News
Responses to Coming Out'
Evelyn Eaton Whitehead
Gerald Coleman is a nuanced thinker, a faithful churchman and a sensitive pastoral guide. His writing on sexuality is widely respected and justifiably influential in Catholic circles, especially among people involved in the church’s ministry with and for lesbian and gay persons and their famil
Columns
Writing Blindly
Valerie Schultz
From the daily barrage of news, certain stories stick with me. When my daughters were small, the reports of children abducted from campgrounds or snatched on their way to school haunted me. As they grow older, accounts of teenage drivers wrapped around trees or spread on freeways resonate. But for s
Books
Why We Believe
Denise Lardner Carmody
I do not know William O rsquo Malley S J but I wish I did I say this because I want both to establish and qualify the objectivity I bring to this review O rsquo Malley who teaches religious studies at Fordham Prep in the Bronx N Y says that God The Oldest Question offers a fresh look at beli
Letters
Letters
Our readers

Catholic Common Ground

I couldn’t agree more with John Dean’s letter (3/26) asking for intra-church dialogue and praising Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s Catholic Common Ground Initiative. But I want to assure him and your readers that the Initiative is alive and well and that the committee, now headed by Archbishop Oscar H. Lipscomb, has been working diligently to foster the vision and to create opportunities for dialogue within our church.

Translating the vision into programs and getting visibility have been enormous challenges, but we now have published resources (two books, a set of videos and a quarterly newsletter) and regular activities. We have just finished our fifth annual conference (this time with young adult Catholics); we gathered leaders in liturgy for two small dialogues on worship space in November and January at Mundelein and Holy Cross College; a four-part dialogue on women in the church was held at the College of New Rochelle; and Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., will deliver our third annual lecture in Washington, D.C., in June. Anyone who would like to be on our mailing list and receive our free newsletter can contact Sr. Catherine M. Patten, R.S.H.M., coordinator of the initiative, at: The National Pastoral Life Center, 18 Bleecker St., New York, NY 10012; (212) 431-7825; e-mail: commonground@nplc.org.

(Rev. Msgr.) Philip J. Murnion

Editorials
Easter Joy
The Editors
J. R. R. Tolkien, the Oxford professor of Anglo-Saxon who became famous by inventing the Hobbits, once pointed out that the Gospel story begins and ends on a note of joy. It begins with the birth of Jesus under the stars in Bethlehem, a moment of purest joy, and it ends with his resurrection in the
Poetry
Coming Back to the World
Jerry Harp

"He observed the wrappings on the ground and saw the piece of cloth

The Word
The Apostle From Missouri
John R. Donahue
For those who have made the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius the stress on what Ignatius calls repetitions initially seems tedious Ignatius exhorts the retreatant to repeat and spend days or more on the same meditation asking whether he or she feels consolation or desolation or arrives at some
A Matter of Justice
Ladislas Orsy
The trial (yes, trial in the full legal sense) of Jacques Dupuis, S.J., has been concluded, and the author of a pioneering work, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism, has been cleared of the suspicion (or was it a charge?) of having deviated from the Catholic faith. He is free to have
Books
A Sensual, Spiritual Feast
Terrence E. Dempsey
For those interested in the role that the visual arts have played in the Christian faith these two books are major contributions They are both connected to an important exhibition organized last year by the National Gallery in London entitled Seeing Salvation According to Neil MacGregor the Nati
Assessing the Value of the Tax Plan
Patricia Ann Lamoureux
Tax season is upon us once again. For many it is a time of dread, not only because of the complexity of the task, but also because of the likelihood of paying more taxes. Feeling already overtaxed, many may find President George W. Bush’s proposed tax plan appealing. There is something in it f
News
Signs of the Times
From AP, CNS, RNS, Staff and other sources
Jesuit Holocaust MartyrThe Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem has formally recognized Adam Sztark, S.J., (1907-42) as Righteous Among Gentiles, a title awarded to those who risked their lives to save Jews during World War II. Father Sztark was rector of a Marian s
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
George M. Anderson
If ever there was a city of parades, it is New York. Working at America House, just a block from Fifth Avenuethe parade route par excellenceI occasionally walk over to watch. The biggest and oldest Fifth Avenue parade of all takes place on St. Patrick’s Day. March 17 this year fell on a Saturd
God's Beloved Creation
Elizabeth A. Johnson
At the start of this third millennium, a new awareness of the magnificence and uniqueness of Earth as one intertwined community of life is growing among people everywhere. The image of our planet seen from space, a blue marble swirled around with white clouds, promotes realization of how fragile but
Books
Lonely Lula
Gerald T. Cobb
Carson McCullers described her distinguished novel The Heart is a Lonely Hunter as the story of five isolated lonely people in their search for expression and spiritual integration with something greater than themselves This thematic preoccupation combined with the fact that McCullers lived for a