In the summer of 2004, when more than 60 victims of human trafficking were found in Long Island, local residents were shocked. Human trafficking had been going on in their backyards for two years, and they had not known it. Churches opened their doors; the local bishop provided temporary shelter in
Some artists whom you think you know well, like some old friends, can surprise you entirely. Perhaps experience has prepared you to share their vision. Or the times have taken a turn that gives the art new urgency. New scholarship uncovers influences and contexts. Radiography and restoration can tel
While there are many reasons to worry about what the future may bringwith global warming, oil depletion and international terrorism high on the listit is imaginable, at least for optimists, that these challenges can be dealt with in some fashion or other. One problem, however, should invite no easy,
It was good to learn of the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Administration (America, 9/26), and its members’ efforts to improve the stewardship of the church. As a city pastor, I see five difficulties in putting the excellent recommendations of the roundtable’s final report into
Since the terrorist mass-murder attacks of 9/11, we have seen a growing debate over the use of torture. The famous civil liberties and defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, in Why Terrorism Works, wrote a full chapter to justify the use of an authorized torture warrant under highly controlled conditions
We have a policy at America of not running many obituaries. The practice saves the editors from agonizing over who gets one and who does not. Of course there are some obvious people who deserve obituaries or appreciations. Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa, for example. Over the last year the theo
Now There’s a Fourth
Peter Heinegg’s perceptive review of Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature (1/2) reminded me of an incident almost a half-century ago. I grew up a few miles from Talcottville, the upstate New York village where Wilson spent part of each year. As a