Friends of Mar Musa
Part of this story is about a man, Paolo Dall’Oglio, an Italian Jesuit in his early 50’s who felt called to work with Muslims while he was still in his early 20’s. The other part is about a place, Mar Musa, a centuries-old monastery in the Syrian desert that had been abandoned for
Admiring the Amish
It was a crime against innocents – horrific and inexplicable – the kind that attracts worldwide attention and an outpouring of sympathy. Yet the shooting of 10 Amish girls in their one-room schoolhouse in Lancaster County, Pa., last October was particularly unfathomable because of who the Amish are
Jolted by Affluence
The location for this year’s Ryder Cup epitomized the triumph of profit in Ireland. The organizers opted for the K Club, a mediocre golf course in comparison with such world-class links as Ballybunion, Lahinch, Portmarnock and half a dozen others. Certainly the infrastructure of the K Club is
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
Sometimes unexpected goodness just blows life open. It happened to me last year about six weeks after I was felled by a bad back. After I had declined an invitation from old friends for dinner because I couldn’t manage public transportation, they e-mailed back: “Come. We’ll send a
Letters
Letters
To Be Heard
Have we, and the media in general, completely forgotten that one of the last great peace efforts by the dying Pope John Paul II was to send Cardinal Pio Laghi, the former Vatican ambassador to Washington (Signs of the Times, 11/6), to try to talk President Bush and his advisers out of their…
Editorials
The People’s Business
The most obvious lesson of the 2006 elections, in which the Democratic Party became the majority party in both houses of Congress, is that the election was a referendum on the leadership of President George W. Bush. The president was quick to accept the verdict of the voters, announcing the followin
Faith in Focus
From Past to Future
The season of Advent has a timeless liturgical spirituality of longing, redemption and grace and an interesting, somewhat convoluted history. The several strands of its development illustrate the way in which the whole liturgical year has evolved over many centuries in relationship to cosmic time, t
Books
Military Monolith
In October 1967 hundreds of thousands of college students and ordinary citizens gathered in Washington D C to express their outrage about the Vietnam War The pranksters of that time including Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin told the newsmen covering the march that they also hoped to levitate the
A Good Re-read
In an age habituated to sensationalism and big effects an austere and nuanced novel like Isobel English rsquo s Every Eyelike the work of her French predecessor Gustave Flaubertmay not appeal to everyone Even Madame Bovary has the soap opera appeal of adultery a theme by the way it shares with
As He Alone ‘Sees’ It
Jason Robertsa contributor to The Village Voice among other publicationsbecame curious about a certain Englishman named James Holman after reading a brief chapter on him in a book about eccentric travelers Trying to learn more about the 19th-century blind man and his extensive travels Roberts was
The Word
Patience as Waiting and Hoping
Advent is a time of waiting and hoping, of renewing our trust in God’s merciful love and care and of reflecting on the several comings of Christ in our lives.
Columns
Cloning for Missouri
The elections of 2006 were largely seen as a referendum on the policies of President George Bush, especially the military adventurism and looming failure in Iraq. Having learned from the defeat at the polls, the president accepted the resignation of his secretary of defense the following day. Perhap
Current Comment
Current Comment
A Guest Comes, Christ ComesStealing a truck to go on a drunken bender in town is not a common occurrence in the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, a Benedictine community in Abiquiu, N.M. Yet the after-hours misdemeanor was perpetrated not by one of the monks, but by a twentysomething participant in
Faith
Patience as Waiting and Hoping
Advent is a time of waiting and hoping, of renewing our trust in God’s merciful love and care and of reflecting on the several comings of Christ in our lives.
News
Signs of the Times
U.S. Bishops Hold Fall General Meeting in BaltimoreAs the U.S. bishops were finishing their second day of business at their Nov. 13-16 fall general meeting in Baltimore, they allocated $335,000 for the next phases of a national study on the causes and context of sexual abuse of minors by members of
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Culture
Vatican
Scripture
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