Of Many Things

Among my most cherished childhood memories are visits to the local branch of Queens Borough Public Library, where peace and quiet reignedexcept for the occasional chair squeaking across the floor, or the loud whisperer, or the crashing book, which violations of the peace were dutifully corrected by

My mother was an immigrant, and ever since coming to New York a few years ago, I have wanted to visit Ellis Island. Now I have been there twice within the past year—last June and then on a bitterly cold day during Christmas week. My mother was luckier than most immigrants. Having grown up in t

Snapshots play a part in the lives of many of ussmall pictures of family groups, children, friends, co-workers. You find them not just at home, but in the workplace too, as well as in wallets and purses. On my way to work on the subway, or going home in the evening, I sometimes see passengers sharin

Pope John Paul II has surprised everyone by announcing an extraordinary consistory for May 21-24. This will be the sixth extraordinary consistory since John Paul resurrected this governmental structure in 1979. In an extraordinary consistory, the pope invites all of the cardinals (even those over 80

This has been a hard winter for New York City’s homeless population. In addition to low temperatures, a blizzard over New Year’s weekend was followed by three lesser but nonetheless harsh snow storms. As a commuter, I see homeless men and women early every morning, sometimes huddled asle

God would have saved the city of Sodom, we are told in Gen. 18:22-33, if Abraham had only been able to find 10 just people. With all the bad news pouring out of Israel these daysdaily Palestinian and Jewish body counts, rising hysteria on both sides and a hardening of attitudesone finds oneself desp

In mid-November, I took the bus down to Washington to sit in on the fall meeting of the U.S. bishops – partly because they were to vote on their pastoral statement regarding the need to re-vamp our draconian criminal justice system, an issue I follow for America. The meeting spanned four days, and o

Is there a vocation crisis? That depends on your perspective. If you think of clergy, the answer is yes. But if you widen the horizon, the picture changes. Think of the number of laymen volunteering to become deacons or the extraordinary number of women presently acquiring advanced degrees in system

It doesn’t take much to get me on the Staten Island ferrythat wondrous half-hour trip across the New York harbor to an island that is one of the city’s five boroughs. Usually, the occasion is a friend’s visit to New York City. Few are those who, looking back from the ferry midway,

Avery Dulles became a Roman Catholic in 1940 when he was a first-year student at the Harvard Law School. Two years later, he was commissioned as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy and served on submarine chasers and aircraft carriers patrolling Atlantic and Mediterranean waters. For his liaiso