On my fifth day at the project, I was asked to work with the carpenters who were refitting and expanding tool bins on 18-foot flatbed trailers. The number of volunteers was rapidly increasing, necessitating an increase in our capacity to get wrecking and dismantling tools into the field. From 50 wee
In the city of Ground Zero, what are Muslims saying about cartoons? When I ask the question to Muslim friends, they tell me stories I wish more people could hear. Muslims in New York seem remarkably unconsumed by the cartoons, because well before 9/11 they understood the need to be self-critical and
Every culture tends to harbor stereotypes of what a saint is supposed to be like and tends to fit the individual into a mold that may be misleading or one-sided. We see what we want to see, or what we think we are supposed to see, and thus are blinded to what may be unconventional about the saint in
The inhumane treatment of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad shocked and puzzled Americans. How could soldiers dedicated to the spread of democracy, with its protection of basic human rights, have behaved in such a brutal way? Unfortunately, few Americans saw Abu Ghraib as an opportunity
In an earlier issue of America (3/27), I discussed three New Testament passages that are often used to argue for a separation of faith from public life: “The poor you will always have with you,” “Render to Caesar...” and “The kingdom of God is within you.” I tried
This is the season of parish closings, consolidations and reconfigurations. After watching the phenomenon at a distance for some years, it has finally struck home for me with a one-two punch. Late this spring the Archdiocese of New York announced the closure of my boyhood parish, St. Paul on Staten
The Truth of Parable
While I very much enjoyed reading Peter C. Erb’s The Schwenkfelder Code (6/5), I would have to object to a few of its assertions. I cringed when the author suggested that a faith based on a fictional narrative was adolescent. Since the embrace of historical-