Adults Left Behind
Ever since President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act into law in January 2002, I have been wondering about the ones who were left behind by the nation’s schools 20, 30 or 40 years ago. Many of them show up now in the lowest ranks of adult literacy. An estimated 40…
The Truly Catholic University
Catholic Universities are not “really” Catholic. So, at least, charges Burton Bollag, writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education in April. As one who is on the front lines in the classroom and in campus ministry and lives in a freshman dorm at Saint Joseph’s University in Philade
The Mystery of Lonergan
Bernard Lonergans writings are notoriously difficult. On more than one occasion I have noticed eyes roll upward at the very mention of his nameas if someone had brought up the topic of nuclear physics. This only makes the depth of peoples attachment to his thought rather mysterious. After all, in th
Relying on Providence
Dozens of manumission papers, documents that testify to the freeing of a slave, lay strewn on the table in the archives at the Baltimore motherhouse of the Oblate Sisters of Providence. I was visiting their archivist, Reginald Gerdes, O.S.P., to learn more about this remarkable order of African-Amer
Priestless Liturgies
During the Lent-Easter season this year, America published a series of articles under the heading Good Liturgy. The series focused on themes central to the current Catholic liturgy, including the role and place of the assembly, presiders, deacons, lectors, eucharistic ministers, music ministers, par
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Central Park lies just a few blocks from America House, and no matter what the season, I sometimes walk there to join other office workers for lunch, on the grass in warm weather or on a bench. Preferring to be on the move, though, I continue on, sandwich in hand, to the center of the…
Letters
Letters
Stay Alert
The thoughtful article, Assume Nothing: A Postscript to the John Jay Report, by Beth Sullivan (9/13), clearly illustrates the need for parents to be aware of words or actions by an adult that might indicate that the person is, or could be, a child abuser. As part of the safe environment programs mandated by…
Editorials
A Time to Mourn
"No young man believes he shall ever die,” said William Hazlitt, the 19th-century British essayist. That shrewd observation is contradicted in times of war. A 22-year-old machine gunner with a French battalion in Korea in the 1950’s wrote to his father: “In our time, when you
Books
Pondering the Human Condition
Czeslaw Milosz rsquo s last collection of poems is a thoroughly typical series of lyric exercises deepening and enriching the concerns that preoccupied him during his long career as a poet The 32 poems in Second Space dwell on the mysteries of the human predicament and the movement of history towa
Curial Culture
ldquo Those who live for a time in Rome experience the church rsquo s age but also its youth They experience the church rsquo s breadth and diversity its religious and human wealth but also the limits and weaknesses of its representatives and members rdquo So writes the widely respected Germa
Faith, Barrio Style
Charles Dahm a Dominican priest is more than qualified to write about parish-based Hispanic ministry Like many U S priests of the Vatican II generation his first passion was Latin America where he steeped himself in Spanish as a missionary in Bolivia On his return to the United States he comp
A Dilemma of Identity
Nobel Prize-winner Jos Saramago must have been thinking of Franz Kafka rsquo s The Metamorphosis when he wrote this his latest novel In Kafka rsquo s tale Gregor Samsa awakens one morning to find he has been transmogrified into an insect something utterly other than what he once was In The Dou
Murdered in Paraguay
Imagine this Your teenage son has been tortured to death under the regime of a Latin American military dictator Imagine too that instead of quietly succumbing to your grief you publicly denounce the murder and speak out against the regime mdash that of the Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner
Revisiting Greeneland
The urge to reveal ourselves to others is often stifled by prudence One of the rewards of writing novels is that the inner hidden self of an author can be mined brought to the surface and exhibited as fiction As the Joseph Conrad scholar Norman Sherry demonstrates in his authorized biography of
The Word
Hang in There!
We are not a patient people We want immediate results We depend on ldquo fast rdquo food we are used to instant communication This disposition is particularly obvious in the popularity of quick weight-loss programs Perseverance is not high on our list of cultural values We hardly ever hear i
News
Signs of the Times
Catholics Engaging in Personal Attacks Over Politics, Says Archbishop FlynnThe fusillade of personal attacks in the current presidential campaign is infecting the debate over issues among Catholics, said Archbishop Harry J. Flynn of St. Paul-Minneapolis. One wonders why the Christian values of chari
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