A person’s first or last words are often the stuff of legend, and because their art makes speech memorable, poets seem especially sensitive to overtures and finales. Dante’s Divine Comedy, for instance, leaves us looking at the stars: each of the epic’s three canticles ends with th
From Our Archives
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Environmental Justice: A Catholic Voice
A new and distinctively Catholic voice on environmental issues has evolved over the last decade. It links traditional church teaching on creation, the common good, social justice and stewardship to major environmental challenges. This often overlooked development is found in initiatives in parishes,
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Sudan: A Troubled Land Seeks Peace
Bush piloting requires a special set of skills that goes beyond the automated instrument flying relied on by commercial pilots. Planes must take off and land on short runways that often represent a thin ribbon of hope in an unforgiving landscape. Landing strips are located in the heart of the wilder
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After the Earthquake
The study of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy in the United States since 1950, which was commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City, is scheduled for release during February 2004. This comprehensive
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Time and Transcendence
Although more than 25 years have passed, the joy I felt at Christmas in Calcutta remains more vivid than any other memory of this season. I was ending what Jesuits call the long experiment of tertianship, that third year of novitiate tacked on to the end of our training. My days had been spent offer
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Grass-Roots Christian Peacebuilders
The wars that have most deeply scarred recent history have not been wars between national states. Internal conflicts killed far more people during the 20th century than international ones like the First and Second World Wars. In a deadly dynamic, government and government-allied forces have wiped ou
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Has the Vatican Changed Its Position on Iraq?
During the countdown early this year to the war in Iraq, Pope John Paul II and his Vatican aides wasted no opportunity to broadcast their opposition to a U.S.-led invasion. They warned that besides being unjust, an invasion would be counterproductiveit would leave many dead and wounded, destroy Iraq
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El Camino Speaks
For over 1,000 years, Europeans living north of the Alps who desired some divine blessing in their lives have made their way to the closest place on their continent where they could access the spiritual authority of an Apostle: Santiago de Compostela. The way to the traditional burial place of St. J
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Helping the Healing
Once a month Sister Barbara Flannery waits outside a door for about two hours. On the other side is a support group for people sexually abused as minors by priests. I’m there, hanging around, said Sister Flannery, chancellor of the Diocese of Oakland, Calif., and a member of the Sisters of St.
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Our Lady of Guadalupe: Patroness of America
The exuberant and growing devotion of U.S. Catholics to Our Lady of Guadalupe is clearly evident in the numerous congregations in San Antonio, Tex., that enthusiastically celebrate her feast on Dec. 12, including San Fernando Cathedral, where Guadalupan devotion has thrived since the parish’s