What type of work have you been doing with refugees in Tanzania?Our presence in the camps as a team of Jesuit Refugee Service is first of all a service of presenceto be present to our sisters and brothers who are suffering in exile. It must be remembered that the majority of the refugees in all thre

Charities Denied Injunction in Contraceptives CaseA Sacramento Superior Court judge has denied a motion by Catholic Charities of Sacramento for a preliminary injunction to block a state law that includes most religious institutions in a requirement that employers pay for contraceptives in prescripti

The moment the names of Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman were added to this year’s national tickets, it should have been clear that the entertainment industry would become an issue in the 2000 campaign. Both the senator and Lynne Cheney, wife of the Republican vice-presidential nominee, have been

On the second full day I was in Nairobi, Kenya, I had the privilege of concelebrating at the funeral Mass for John Anthony Kaiser, a priest of the Mill Hill Missionaries, who had been killed after serving in western Kenya for over 36 years. His as-yet unidentified killers fired a shotgun into the ba

Did you know that: William Styron (The Confessions of Nat Turner, 1967, Pulitzer Prize; Sophie’s Choice, 1979, American Book Award; et al.) was able to read at age five and was publishing short stories as an adolescent? Agatha Christie’s first mystery, published in 1920, sold only 2,000

Walden Pond is, happily, still intact, despite efforts by developers to destroy its surrounding woods and thereby the pervading spirit of Henry Thoreau, who lived on its banks for a year in the mid-1840’s. During a vacation week spent in the Boston area this past summer, I traveled to the pond

Roman Theologians Say Condom Use O.K. in Certain CasesThe discussion of whether the Catholic Church should tolerate the use of condoms as a lesser evil in fighting the spread of AIDS resurfaced at the Vatican as a result of an article in America (9/23). In that article, Jon D. Fuller, S.J., M.D., an

Every parish priest and university chaplain knows the story. The young couple visits their pastor to make arrangements for their wedding. The pastor begins to ask the questions on the prenuptial questionnaire. The young man gives his address and later the young woman. It appears they live at the sam

Editor’s note: In Germany, candidates for teaching positions in Catholic theology at universities and seminaries must receive a mandatum (nihil obstat) from a bishop. Since these academic positions are state appointments, this use of the nihil obstat arose over the last century in order to pre