Arts & Culture

One of the most enduring images I have of my visit to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City in 1999 is the proliferation of religious goods booths selling every conceivable souvenir or item of devotion which one must pass in order to reach the shrine itself I remember being troubled

Roger Haight needs little introduction to readers of America A Jesuit for over 50 years past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the author of several prize-winning books of theology he now teaches at the interdenominational Union Theological Seminary in New York City I

Something happened to the mind of England between the time of Donne and the time of Tennyson and Browning wrote T S Eliot in his 1921 essay The Metaphysical Poets This something was the dissociation of sensibility from which we have never recovered He meant the separation of thought and fe

In 1954 when the blockbuster horror movie Them hit the silver screen the young Barnard graduate and budding writer Francine du Plessix not yet married to the artist Cleve Gray was off in France Even if she hadn rsquo t been there was no way such a sophisticated intellectual with flawless Fre

Saturday brings Ian McEwan rsquo s novel output to a neat dozen with one exception most of them have tended toward brevity rather than length I have read almost all of them and consider myself a fan Ironically McEwan received the Booker Prize for Amsterdam a short novel of intrigue while his

The argument of Over the Edge is spelled out clearly in the subtitle the media film television computer games driven by advertisers fixated on the importance of an audience of youthful consumers has changed and corrupted American culture In pushing the limits to attract the younger generatio

Today as never before in their history Americans are enthralled with military power So begins the introduction to Andrew J Bacevich rsquo s thorough and prophetic examination of our increasing dependence on guns and bombs to insure our domestic security and spread our ideals of democracy abroad Ba

The newest book by the papal biographer and social commentator George Weigel owes much of its theory to the late Pope John Paul II and its main questions read like a sermon by the new pope Benedict XVI The Cube and the Cathedral is an excellent read It is clear to the point and engaging and en

At the closing of the interreligious World Day of Peace in Assisi in 1986 Pope John Paul II articulated the essence and value of the day rsquo s fasting and prayer ldquo Let us see in it an anticipation of what God would like the developing history of humanity to be a fraternal journey in which

The first question that comes to my mind while reading de Bellaigue rsquo s blunt reportage from the Islamic Republic is What about Kahra Kazemi the photo-journalist who was brutally beaten and possibly raped by the Iranian secret police before dying of her injuries on July 10 2003 She held a