Rituals at Auschwitz-Birkenau
We can define ritual as a re-enactment of a previous event, in some cases a traumatic one, within the safety of sympathetic relationships. Its objective is not to repeat the trauma, but to bring resolution to it. Taking part in a ritual can evoke the deepest human experience of joy, grief or pain as
A War on Children
My friend Sunday Obote was just 7 years old when the Lord’s Resistance Army stormed his family home in northern Uganda one night in 1994. The L.R.A. is a rebellious guerrilla group that opposes the military government of Uganda, a land-locked nation in east-central Africa. And yes, the L.R.A.
The New Name for Peace
Andrew S. Natsios, administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, sent a shudder through the room at a food aid conference in Kansas City, Mo., in May when he said that food aid to the survivors of disasters is a higher priority than aid for development programs. Two-thirds to thre
Unfinished Work
As we mark this month the 40th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council’s “Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions,” the Israeli government has taken numerous initiatives to increase awareness of the document that did away with the s
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
"Getting out of prison, I had no job and no place to go, so I ended up in a shelter in Brooklyn,” said José Carrero. A recent graduate of the Ready, Willing & Able program of the Doe Fund, which helps homeless people become independent, José spoke these words at its annual graduatio
Letters
Letters
Church and War
The article by Robert F. Drinan, S.J., Holy See Backs Nuclear Disarmament (9/12), is excellent. We need more articles on this issue and on the church’s positions on war in general. A substantial number of Catholics in the United States think that the church supports the war in Iraq.
Walter C. Hooke
Editorials
In Search of Consensus
As the U.S. Senate began its confirmation debate on President Bush’s nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. for chief justice of the Supreme Court, the outcome of that debate seemed assured: Judge Roberts would be confirmed as the nation’s 17th chief justice with overwhelming approval b
Short Take
Thoughts on Yom Kippur
From the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, until the end of Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), Jews around the world engage in an intense annual period of repentance.
Books
Together, in Faith
Jacques Maritain was the incarnation of Catholic intellectual lifea spirit alive with ideas supremely sensitive to other persons filled with the charity of the Gospels His journey in this world toward the homeland beyond was made possible as he thought by his companion and wife Ra ssa Oumanso
The Ground of Our Being
In 1918 the German religion scholar Friedrich Heiler published his great phenomenological study of prayer which for all its merits and sympathy for prayer was flawed by his rigid separation of prayer from ritual gesture folk custom and icon Heiler rsquo s restrictive methodology did not come
A Complex Experience
Most Irish Americans have the impression that the history of Irish America began in the 19th century when over three million Irish mostly Catholic emigrated to the United States That is false This history began in the 18th century when thousands of Irish mostly Protestant emigrated to Britis
A Movable Feast
Notre Dame is a world unto itself – a place apart Unlike Georgetown University or Boston College where students can get away from campus and wash off their school colors in the secular currents of Wisconsin Avenue or Commonwealth Avenue for a day or a night every night if they want Notre Dame s
Reflective Pluralism
Has the pluribus in the vaunted boast begun to submerge even eradicate the unum America has become Robert Wuthnow the director of Princeton University rsquo s Center for the Study of American Religion argues in this new book a more religiously diverse nation Buddhist and Hindu temples and Mo
Poetry
Burning Bush
Outside my window, the bushes have turned, redder
The Word
How Does God Work?
The Gospels often depict Jesus in conflict with those who are in positions of leadership both religious and political A close look will show that Jesus does not challenge legitimate authority but only the way individuals exercise it In an upcoming episode he counsels those around him to heed th
Faith
Thoughts on Yom Kippur
From the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, until the end of Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), Jews around the world engage in an intense annual period of repentance.
News
Signs of the Times
John Long, Leading Ecumenist, Dies at 80John F. Long, S.J., a leading ecumenist and one of the world’s foremost Catholic experts on Eastern Orthodox churches and theology, died in New York on Sept. 20 following hospitalization for emergency cardiac surgery. He was 80 years old. Cardinal Willia
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts