Of Many Things

One afternoon in early February, a sad-eyed man in a faded parka was standing on a corner in Midtown Manhattan. He was timidly trying to distribute cards for a nearby sandwich-and-salad shop, but the crowd brushed past him. Not far away, two young women were more successful. Smiling and twittering,

You have to hand it to Mel Gibson. Whether his decision to screen The Passion of the Christ in advance for only a hand-picked cadre of sympathetic reviewers (mostly evangelical Protestants, conservative Catholics and sympathetic rabbis) was motivated by fear, money or faith, it was an excellent mark

During his surprising appearance on “Meet the Press” on Feb. 8, President Bush outlined what most observers believe will be the basic argument of his campaign for re-election in November 2004. The dominant theme of that campaign was probably captured in the president’s assertion to

Every organization has people who work behind the scenes out of the limelight, to make sure that everything gets done that needs to be done. They do not get the headlines, but no organization can survive without them. America had such a person for 40 years as our business manager and controller. Jam

A Pentecost wind—that’s what it felt like the afternoon I took a subway uptown to visit the Mother Cabrini shrine. It was her feast day, Nov. 13, and never having been there, it therefore seemed the right moment to do something I had thought about since my days as a seminarian. Back then

Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s widow—a tiny figure in tight jeans and a short, snug-fitting jacket—was talking about her art. She stood out in marked contrast to her surroundings, the cavernous 19th-century Great Hall of the Cooper Union in Lower Manhattan, where Abraham Lincoln once spok

Here’s an old chestnut I first heard as a novice: "He’s as confused as a Jesuit during Holy Week!" Ha ha. We Jesuits were supposed to be so addled about liturgical practices that the elaborate rituals of Holy Week were for us a mystery – and not the good kind of mystery.There i

On the day after Thanksgiving, I attended the 25th reunion of my high school class and experienced something quite unexpected. Actually, I almost didn’t go. Though I am in touch with most of my good friends from high school, many have moved away and were not planning to attend. Another friend

On the afternoon of May 22, 1856, Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina barged into the Senate chamber and used his walking stick to beat into insensibility Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. Two days earlier, Sumner had given a fiery antislavery speech that Brooks claimed had libele

Rockefeller Center—there it is, only six blocks south of America House. I often pass through it just to savor the plaza’s open space, carved out oasis-like from the surrounding tall buildings in congested New York City. The sunken section of the plaza is transformed into a skating rink a