Complete PersonThanks for an excellent article on “The Church and Psychiatry” (7/30). When the idea of becoming a Catholic priest first took hold of me, I ran away, much like Jonah. I decided to go into professional psychology instead. In working on my Ph.D. in clinical psychology I foun

This book is a not a history of Catholicism in Ulster as a religion but rather considers the Catholics of Ulster as a political and cultural identity Anyone who has spent any time in Northern Ireland knows that the confessional designation of Catholic and Protestant is shorthand for a specific and

The international team of Panayiotis Zavos, of the University of Kentucky, and Servino Antinori of Rome, Italy, and a group called the Raelians, who think humans were made by aliens using genetic technologies, have both announced that they are moving forward on the human cloning project. The Raelian

I once heard a talk by a priest who was also a clinical psychologist, in which he said: “If you are a Christian, you have to believe that people can change. If you don’t believe people can change, you have no right to call yourself a believer in Jesus Christ and in his Gospel message. It

Faced with a growing pro-democracy movement led by intellectuals, journalists and the labor movement, King Mswati III of Swaziland (a small African country surrounded by South Africa and Mozambique) has cracked down on dissent and declared a state of emergency. Press censorship, arrest of dissidents

On Jan 2 1882 Teddy Roosevelt burst into the Republican caucus room in Albany wearing a cutaway coat and carrying his silk hat and gold-headed cane His single eyeglass with gold chain over his ear and center-parted hair marked him as every bit the ldquo dude rdquo a rich playboy But he was n

U.S. trade policies must be “fully aligned with our values,” the new United States Trade Representative, Robert B. Zoellick, said in an interview published in The Washington Post on March 13. “I’m convinced, whether it relates to child labor, forced labor, or HIV/AIDS—a

About a year ago I wrote in this space about the challenge of interfaith marriages and families, and to my delight, I received several affirming letters from priests and lay people. They agreed that the church’s response to such unions will be among the defining issues of 21st-century Catholic

It was a lovely summer morning, perfect for the first Ladies Day Out for the women in my family. From all over Virginia, we gathered for brunch in a private dining room at a historic hotel in Richmond. Our holiday was the newest twist on our family’s tradition of enjoying the pleasure of one a

Israeli Troops Enter Village, Make Night ‘Like Hell’Night in the mainly Christian village of Beit Jalla was “like hell,” said the Rev. Yacoub Abdel Nur, pastor of Annunciation Catholic Church, after Israeli forces entered the village. “It was terrible; nobody could slee

In the era of air travel and bullet trains what most people understand by ldquo pilgrimage rdquo says Anne McPherson is ldquo a beeline trip to a distant goal rdquo She herself has lived by an older French notion ldquo walking to the saints rdquo For the pilgrims to the shrine of St Jam

Architects can poison your faith. I found that out between 1960 and 1962, when I lived in a huge seminary the Jesuits had recently built about an hour’s drive north of New York City. The seminary was what Le Corbusier once called a “machine for living”; it had all the charm of Sovi

Bishops’ Statements on Stem Cell ResearchHere are excerpts from statements of various U.S. bishops in reaction to President Bush’s decision, announced on Aug. 9, to permit federal funding of embryonic stem cell research using existing stem cell lines.Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza of Galvesto

An ideal of Ignatius Loyola one that Jesuit schools still cultivate in their students is the ldquo contemplative in action rdquo someone who combines deep reflection with effective deeds John Adams second president of the United States did not admire Ignatius However David McCullough rsquo

While serving as the deputy chaplain of the U.S. Marine Corps, with supervisory responsibility for some 250 chaplains from some 60 different faith groups, I was discouraged by the disproportionate number of Catholic chaplains who were committing offenses that resulted either in their imprisonment or

Without dismissing the importance of other leaders in the history of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, it is fair to say that Dorothy Day remains, at the dawn of the new millennium, the radical conscience of American Catholicism.

I sat out back with the newspaper early one summer morning, reading about current events. Most stories dealt with death and destruction. Headlined were such vices as avarice, adultery, casual dishonor—all sins not acknowledged as such, but openly condoned. (Ironically a full-page ad urged pare

Frank McCourt rsquo s impoverished youth in Limerick recalled so vividly and brutally in Angela rsquo s Ashes actually could have been much worse according to the acclaimed author rsquo s cousin ldquo When we were in Killarney industrial school rdquo Pat Sheehan tells the writer and documen