Preaching Faith in the Midst of Tragedy
Sept. 11, 2001, drove preachers of the Good News to tackle the classic questions of theodicy.
After September 11: How Ethics Can Help
Tuesday, Sept. 11, may have changed everything. The unprecedented violence perpetrated against the United States now demands, many claim, an unprecedented response. In light of this horrific attack and understandable citizen outrage, it is not surprising that the composition of that response is bein
Osama bin Laden and the Just Conduct of War
In the language of the Western just war tradition, the attacks of Sept. 11 were indiscriminatethey (at least, those on the World Trade Center) involved a direct and intentional attack against civilians. But Osama bin Laden appeals to the tradition of Islam; he holds that such attacks are not only pe
From Ends to Means: Devising a Response to Terrorism
On Tuesday, Sept. 11, the United States was stunned by terrorist acts that exhibited the audacity and cunning of the terrorists and dealt a grievous symbolic blow to the power of the United States of America. The reaction in this country and almost everywhere else has been abhorrence and condemnatio
What Can Be Done? What Should Be Done?
To write about Sept. 11, 2001, is to know the paucity of one’s vocabulary and literary skill. The words are so disproportionate to the tragedy that the temptation is to stop trying to describe it. John Paul II condemned it as an unspeakable horror and a dark day in the history of humanity, a t
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
We want to thank all our readers and friends who expressed their sympathy and concern in numerous letters and e-mails. In the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, it was good to know that we had friends praying for us all over the world.Our residence-office building is about
Letters
Letters
Well Covered IssueI commend America and the artist Michael Altman for the wonderful cover for your religious education issue (9/24). As an artist—and especially a collage artist—I am aware of the ingenuity of Mr. Altman as he created this composition. He succeeded in bringing together ph
Editorials
A Just War?
The United States is going to wage a war against terrorists, says President George W. Bush. Is this a just war according to the principles of the Catholic just war theory? For this issue we asked experts in the just war theory to examine this question and present their views.Before looking at the U.
Faith in Focus
World Trade Center Journal: Part Two
Friday, Sept. 14On my second day at the site that the press now calls ground zero, it has become more difficult to gain access, even in a Roman collar. Today at Chelsea Piers, a sports arena turned supply warehouse, I hitch a ride in a huge tractor-trailer with two ironworkers from New Jersey. Becau
Books
The Nun Study
In the first years of the 20th century Alois Alzheimer a German neurologist cared for a middle-aged woman with a marked personality change characterized by bizarre behavior and memory loss This woman died about five years after he first met her years characterized by an inexorable decline to a
Spirit Versus Nature
Combining archetypal psychology ecclesiology and ethics Eugene Kennedy in his latest book The Unhealed Wound sets out a disturbing vision of church malaise rooted in the distorted transference of sexual energy into power and manipulation Kennedy uses the analogy of the wounded Grail King of the
The Wrong’ Rebecca
When Virginia Woolf published Mrs Dalloway in 1925 her fourth novel she set out to demonstrate what she thought was needed in modern fiction an examination of the interior of her characters the stream of consciousness that holds each of us together from moment to moment What did not interest
The Word
Hope Amid the Ruins
Karl Barth one of the great theologians of the past century urged people to read the Bible with a copy of the daily newspaper at their side He realized that the Bible could challenge the way we view human life I write these lines three days after the horrendous catastrophe that has washed over s
Columns
Don’t Worry, Mohammed
My friend Mohammed rises every morning at 1:30 after five or six hours of sleep. He prays, showers, gets dressed and leaves his apartment near Crown Heights in Brooklyn by 2:30 or so. He walks the safe but never entirely secure streets of central Brooklyn until he finds his car, an old midsized seda
Faith
World Trade Center Journal: Part Two
Friday, Sept. 14On my second day at the site that the press now calls ground zero, it has become more difficult to gain access, even in a Roman collar. Today at Chelsea Piers, a sports arena turned supply warehouse, I hitch a ride in a huge tractor-trailer with two ironworkers from New Jersey. Becau
News
Signs of the Times
Vatican Signals Wider, Qualified Support for U.S. Military Action As Pope John Paul II made a four-day visit to Central Asia, the Vatican appeared to signal a wider—though still qualified—margin of support for eventual U.S. military action against terrorists around the globe. The pope
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts