Forgiving Their Debts
In ancient Israel, a jubilee year was a time to build the kinds of social relationships expected of God’s people. It was the season to liberate slaves who lost their freedom through debt and return land to those who had sold it to pay off debts. It was a year to erase debts altogether. So…
Explainer
What happens if a pope resigns?
Could a pope resign? Would a retired pope still be infallible? If a pope resigns and another is elected, are there in effect two popes?
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Learn a new language at the advanced age of 60? Surely madness even to try. But having come to New York in 1994 to work for America, I moved after my first year of living at America House to a Jesuit parish on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Knowing that Nativity Parish is primarily Hispanic, and
Letters
Letters
Country Held HostageYour editorial Send the Boy Home to Cuba (3/11) has many inaccuracies:1) The title makes Elián look like a parcel or inanimate object that could be easily shipped to Cuba. He is a young human being, whose feelings must be taken into account. After almost four months in the Unite
Editorials
Asking Forgiveness
In the first Sunday of Lent, Pope John Paul II asked forgiveness for sins committed by Catholics over the last two millennia. For 20 minutes he listed and prayed about sins against various groups, including Jews and Muslims. "Christians have often denied the Gospel; yielding to a mentality of p
Features
Is Anti-Catholicism The Last Acceptable Prejudice?
From 2000: In a “multicultural” society shouldn’t anti-Catholicism be a dead issue?
Faith in Focus
Choosing Crocuses
In early spring several years ago, I helped to lead a retreat for college students. The weekend felt intense and emotional, but also very loving and accepting. One speaker introduced his talk by requesting that we not clap for him, or hug him, or discuss his words when he finished. He would prefer, he said,…
Books
A Winding Path
Robert Clark rsquo s parents divorced when he was two and his father died of polio three years later so he found himself in the care of his grandfather Griggs who owned a house in a forest of jack pine and spruce in northern Wisconsin and that house is for him the location of his…
Moral Accords?
Concordats are treaties between states and the Holy See regulating the civil status of the church Because the Holy See represents not only political interests but moral ones as well concordats unlike most treaties tend to be confused in the popular mind with the notion that the Holy See approves
Two Worlds, One Dream
John Phillip Santos is program officer at the Ford Foundation in New York and the first Mexican-American Rhodes scholar to study at Oxford He is a well-known journalist and author of television documentaries With this book Santos emerges as a prose writer of unusual artistry His memoir is a stunn
The Word
Grace Abounding
As Holy Week nears the central theme of the liturgy today is captured by the second reading quot God who is rich in mercy because of his great love for us brought us to life in Christ quot The first reading is the conclusion of the Chronicler rsquo s history written around 400 B C…
Columns
No Apology for This?
Of all the commentary about George W. Bush and his now-famous appearance at Bob Jones University, the most interesting came from Bishop Thomas V. Dailey of Brooklyn. Speaking to the press, the bishop expressed measured concernbut not about the topic at hand. He was not so much concerned about the Te
Faith
What happens if a pope resigns?
Could a pope resign? Would a retired pope still be infallible? If a pope resigns and another is elected, are there in effect two popes?
Is Anti-Catholicism The Last Acceptable Prejudice?
From 2000: In a “multicultural” society shouldn’t anti-Catholicism be a dead issue?
News
Signs of the Times
Examination of Conscience Culminates in Pope’s Mea CulpaPope John Paul II made an unprecedented apology for the sins of Christians through the ages, the culmination of the church’s examination of conscience for the jubilee year. The pope’s long-awaited mea culpa on March 12 was ech
Portfolio
This Little Light
I like to tell folks that I have a little black nun inside of me. She’s my muse, my spiritual guru, my inspiration. She’s a patron saint who leads me and guides me when I call on her to lend me a hand. She’s the late Sister Thea Bowman (1937-90). Now I never met Thea…
Politics
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Vatican
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Podcasts