Father William Rowe is back No not restored to his beloved St Mary Parish in southeast Illinois from which he was extracted by Bishop Edward Braxton for improvising parts of the prayers at Mass but back in the news in a report by Melinda Henneberger in the Washington Post and a repeat by Rober
Raymond A. Schroth, S.J.
Raymond A. Schroth, S.J., was the literary editor of America and the author of six books, including Dante to Dead Man Walking: One Reader’s Journey through the Christian Classics and American Journey of Eric Sevareid.
Posted inIn All Things
Readings: “Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”
About a month ago in a speech he called ldquo My Brother rsquo s Keeper rdquo President Barack Obama called upon the American people mdash business industry educational institutions and non-profit foundations in particular mdash to face up to the scandalous condition of young men of color To p
Posted inBooks
Have Courage! Take Risks!: Two new books challenge priests and everyone.
Part of the excitement in those daily homilies Pope Francis has been delivering is that here is the pope saying things many of us have been saying to one another but have seldom if ever heard from the pulpit or read in the diocesan press On June 20th the pope urged Jesuit journalists to attack hypo
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Man of Contradictions
I first discovered Mario Vargas Llosa in 1990 when I was in Peru to see a friend climb Machu Picchu and write an article That was the time when Vargas Llosa the novelist was running for president of Peru The guerilla movement Shining Path was terrorizing the countryside and the economy was fal
Posted inIn All Things
Readings: Rotten Journalism
Miriam Weeks the daughter of a doctor in Spokane now a freshman at Duke University hopes to ldquo screw her way all the way to graduation rdquo Now do I have your attention I love newspapers I read four every day My father wrote editorials for The Trenton Times and four other dailies includi
Posted inIn All Things
Readings: Frontline’s “Secrets of the Vatican”
In one sense there are few surprises in Tuesday evening rsquo s broadcast of Frontline rsquo s latest documentary on the scandals that continue to rock the Catholic Church Few surprises that is if you have been following the story for the last ten years though this is not about birth control ab
Posted inIn All Things
Readings: A Big Man Falls
ldquo Oh brothers They love to see a big man fall rdquo The voice is that of our novice master at St Andrew on Hudson in 1956 not referring to any particular politician but rather to the president of a Jesuit University who as a result of some internal upheaval had resigned Father Master r
Posted inIn All Things
Readings: One Book, Six Million Jews
The new this-should-be-talked-about book is a big one mdash 1 250 pages of 6 million words mdash yet it rsquo s a quick read All 6 million words are the same one word only printed 6 million times The author Phil Chernofsky tells the New York Times nbsp that each word mdash Jew mdash symboliz
Posted inIn All Things
Readings: Pope Francis on Community Life
Pope Francis 39 discussion marking the end of the Union of Superiors General of religious men at their 82nd General Assembly made just one day rsquo s headline and then faded from the news Too bad because it was one of those spontaneous conversations where the truth suddenly pops out and deserve
Posted inIn All Things
Readings: Where Football Goes Wrong
The second week of December was a rough one on the home front The Washington Post told us that beyond the massacre at Newtown 71 children had been killed by gunfire in 2012 In Colorado a high school student armed with a just-bought shotgun set out to get even with one of his teachers but shot t