Fasting: A Fresh Look
Have you ever tried to explain the Catholic regulations on fasting to a Muslim, a Jew or a Hindu? Save yourself the raised eyebrows of incomprehension or the smirk that says, “You’ve got to be kidding!” Somehow “one full meal and two lesser ones not equaling it” doesn&r
Ethics Outflanked
Thirty years from now, students in ethics classes who study the Iraq war will be stunned by the manner in which ethicists twisted themselves into pretzels searching for a moral lens that would fit this war experience. They will be particularly puzzled by how the political realm continued to define t
The Dilemma in Iraq
Iraq was a preventive war. As preventive wars are wont to do, it has become a war of occupation (de jure and now de facto). Like other uninvited occupiers, the United States finds itself in a terrible dilemma: its very presence is fueling insurgency and terrorism, yet its premature withdrawal could
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Social movements sometimes grow slowly out of sight, like Mark’s “seed growing secretly,” and then burst forth suddenly with astonishing rightness, just made for the times. So it is with the Religious Campaign Against Torture (www.nrcat.org). George Hunsinger, a graduate school cla
Letters
Letters
Needs of Parishioners
While I agree with much of the assessment by the Rev. Frank D. Almade in Response to A Blueprint for Change’ (1/30), I believe that priests today do want to be leaders of the parish community. However, the lights, leaks, locks, loot and lawns can take an inordinate amount of time. This is…
Editorials
The Meanest Cities
Cities vary in their responses to the needs of their homeless populations. Some are very mean indeed as the numbers of homeless people continue to rise. Take Sarasota, Fla. After state courts overturned two successive anti-lodging laws as applied to public spaces, the city persisted and this past su
Faith in Focus
Humbled
I don’t want to be humbled; you don’t either, I suspect. Yet there are people who say it was the best thing that ever happened to them. Members of Alcoholics Anonymous, for example, say that they began to move toward sanity and wholeness only after they had been deeply humbled. Likewise,
Books
It’s in Our Blood
Reviewed in our pages in 2006, ‘One Nation Under God,’ offers a vivid portrait of public prayer in American history.
What Lurks Beneath
In his new short story collection T C Boyle has gone a step further than William Butler Yeats who conveyed in his poem ldquo The Second Coming rdquo the alienation and disconnectedness of 20th-century life with the memorable image ldquo the falcon cannot hear the falconer rdquo Boyle descr
The Word
The Mystery of the Beloved Son
The word mystery among its several meanings may refer to a religious truth that is known by revelation and is not fully understood by reason alone The readings for the Second Sunday of Lent highlight Jesus rsquo identity as God rsquo s beloved Son and confront us with the mystery of his death on
Columns
The Cruelest Month
For parents and students in struggling Catholic schools, winter surely is the cruelest season. For it is now, in the first quarter of the year, that many parents and children learn that their school – for so many, their refuge – will not reopen its doors in September. Actually, this is a best-case s
News
Signs of the Times
Israeli Citizen Named Melkite ArchbishopFor the first time, the Vatican and the Melkite Catholic Synod of Bishops have agreed on an Israeli citizen to be archbishop of Akko, Israel. Archimandrite Elias Chacour, parish priest of the village of Ibillin in northern Galilee and founder of Mar Elias Coll
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts