On a January Monday, after busloads of pilgrims returned from this year’s March for Life in Washington, D.C., Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. Louis witnessed the installation of Archbishop Raymond Burke. It was an appropriate juxtaposition of events: local news coverage prior to the instal
The publication of the bishops’ document just before Lent will be followed closely--on Ash Wednesday, in fact--by the release of a controversial movie "The Passion of the Christ," produced and directed by the actor Mel Gibson, in over 2,000 theaters across the United States This may
We can be forgiven if we think the spirituality of aging applies only to the septuagenarians among us, but aging is a tricky term, for we are aging from the instant of our conception, and then there is the matter of perception. Victor Hugo noted that Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth
The 10th anniversary of the signing of the Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel occurred on Dec. 30, 2003. David-Maria A. Jaeger, O.F.M., has served on the Holy See’s delegation to the negotiations with Israel since 1992 and is widely credited as the principal dra
A week or so before Ash Wednesday this year, the Committee for Ecumenical Affairs of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will release a 150-page resource book for use by Catholic preachers, teachers, interested laity and Catholic-Jewish dialogue groups. Entitled The Bible, the Jews and the Death
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
Catholics, Abortion and Politics
A task force of seven was established at the U.S. bishops’ meeting Nov. 10-12, 2003, to prepare policy for dealing with Catholic politicians on the subject of abortion. As one bishop stated, the question is most complicated and delicate. The