A line still forms outside the Father McKenna Center at St. Aloysius Church in Washington, D.C. People come to the cramped but homey church basement looking for food, clothing, housing and personal support. They still tell stories about Father McKenna, who died 25 years ago.

While camping in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northeast Minnesota last fall, which I regularly do, I had my first encounter with a bear. Black bears are shy, but a dry summer had left few berries, and previous messy campers had advertised the area as a promising place to stave off a

A news item caught my eye not long ago: the minor seminary in Chicago was closing after 102 years, and all the alumni had been invited to see the place one last time before it was to be renovated as a pastoral center. I had attended Quigley Preparatory Seminary for only one year, my freshman year in

The story of the rowdy young man who was martyred for refusing to obey Hitler.

Seven years have passed since Israeli and Palestinian officials last sat around a negotiating table to discuss the core political issues that divide them. According to the Declaration of Principles signed between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1993, five permanent status issue

Everyone seems interested these days in defining Catholic identity—movements and Movements, R.C.I.A. and Neocatechumenate, liturgists and “religious” educators, curial vigilantes and the rear-guard of “social actionists.” No one wonders how the Catholic laity define the