The Hard Lessons of Kakuma
You will not find Kakuma on most world maps. It is a small town in northwestern Kenya, located in the desert where anthropologists hypothesize the human race began. Twelve years ago, the Kenyan government picked the area for use as a refugee camp. Today Kakuma has 80,000 refugees.The largest group a
The Marriage Debate: More Than a Gay Issue
America’s Catholic bishops have taken on a cause that can win broad public support – fighting to support marriage, as Bishop J. Kevin Boland of Savannah put it at the annual fall meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in November. Public debate at the moment is focused on whether h
New Steps to Protect the Children
In an unprecedented undertaking, from June 3 through Oct. 31, 2003, independent auditors reviewed the management actions taken by 191 Catholic dioceses in the United States to comply with the provisions of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. The charter, adopted by the Unite
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Yoko Ono, John Lennon’s widow—a tiny figure in tight jeans and a short, snug-fitting jacket—was talking about her art. She stood out in marked contrast to her surroundings, the cavernous 19th-century Great Hall of the Cooper Union in Lower Manhattan, where Abraham Lincoln once spok
Letters
Letters
Judging Miguel Estrada
The support expressed by John W. Donohue, S.J. , for Miguel Estrada’s nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is misguided, and his equation of the threatened filibuster to the actions of Bully Brooks is irresponsible rhetorical excess (Of Many Things, 1/5). Mr. Estrada holds pro-life views,…
Editorials
Mentally Ill Prisoners
Rampant mental illness in jails and prisons combines two forms of suffering for offenders: the illness itself and having to endure it behind bars. The sheer magnitude of the problem is shocking. Jails and prisons hold three times as many mentally ill people as mental health hospitals. This is partly
Faith in Focus
A Catholic Among the Amish
The Amish are a unique phenomenon in American and Christian culture. During a summer vacation when I was 17, I had the rare opportunity to experience the life of these people in an intimate way. Side by side with a young family of eight Old Order Amish, I milked cows, tilled fields, bailed hay and…
Books
Venerable Immigrant
Pierre Toussaint was born a slave in Haiti on the B rard plantation known as L rsquo Artibonite According to the most recent chronology the year was 1781 The young Toussaint was spared the grueling toil of work on the fields His labor was in the household where he learned to read and write Fr
Where They Stand
With clarity and candor Dean Hoge a professor in the department of sociology at The Catholic University of America in Washington D C and Jacqueline Wenger a graduate student and licensed clinical social worker communicate and interpret extensive data about generational changes in the priesth
Film
Lovers in the Ruins: Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain adds significance to its shopworn narrative with several brilliant scenes that have only marginal relationship to the story line. That is not an altogether damning comment. Jean Renoir, the great French director, once expressed his admiration for American Westerns: “They’re
The Word
Blessings and Curses
What comes to mind when you think of blessings Perhaps some degree of prosperity or good health Your musings might include something as weighty as deliverance from harm or as commonplace as victory in a high school basketball game When circumstances seem to go the way we want it is not uncommon
Columns
Cherishing the Time of Our Lives
A friend wrote a beautiful song a few years ago with the refrain, “Time, like gold, is hard to find, is hard to mine…is hard to hold.” The melody of that song has been playing in my mind frequently these days, perhaps because the words express so poignantly my beliefs about time and th
News
Signs of the Times
Canon Lawyers Say Due Process Limited for Accused Priests
As U.S. dioceses work through the cases of clerics accused of sex abuse of minors, several canon lawyers who are defending accused priests have complained that the procedures limit due process for their clients. Under church law you are innocent until proven guilty, said Frank Morrisey, an…
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