While playing with his little brother next to their home in Quang Tri province, Giang, five at the time, picked up an explosive device. It detonated. His three-year-old brother was killed instantaneously. Giang lost a hand and an eye and still has several pieces of shrapnel embedded in his body. He

Professors Rodney Stark and Roger Finke, who teach sociology at the University of Washington and Purdue University respectively, think the Catholic Church will suffer membership reverses characteristic of mainline Protestant denominations. The two professors offered the following observations on the

In December 1998 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published a remarkable document titled "Reflections on the Primacy of Peter" (hereafter "Reflections"; see Origins, 1/28/99). At the outset, "Reflections" states that popes should exercise their authority &

There are some things that you never forget. For me, it happened after a long day of school. I welcomed the peace and quiet of home, never realizing how ironic that sentiment soon would be. Shortly after arriving, I settled into the couch and snuggled under the increasingly warm blanket for what I t

In the oppressive heat of the midday sun, the nun in full habit held two heavy shovels. She walked just behind the gravediggers, who tried to carry with some dignity a lifeless body wrapped in old hospital bedsheets. We had arrived here in India just a few weeks before this burial.

Suicide is a major mental health problem that touches all our lives The incidence of suicide is frighteningly highthere are few among us who do not know a friend or family member who has either attempted or committed suicide and no one of us is immune from its reach We have much to learn from tho

Generalizations about races or nations, however prejudiced, usually have some basis in fact.- Peter Mansfield, The Arabs.

It might surprise many to learn that no bishop has ministered to more persons living with AIDS than Cardinal John O’Connor, who by his own report tended to countless patients at St. Clare’s Hospital. I dare say also that no bishop has directly ministered to more priests and bishops who w

Health care is emerging as a major campaign issue, and rightly so, because we are in trouble. The U.S. Census Bureau has found that over 44 million people lack health insurance. It is estimated that by the year 2008, the number of uninsured will have risen to 55 millionalmost a quarter of all non-el

New York Says Goodbye To Cardinal O’ConnorThousands filled St. Patrick’s Cathedral for one service after another as New Yorkers said their final goodbyes to Cardinal John J. O’Connor. The 80-year-old cardinal, who died on May 3 after an eight-month battle with cancer, was archbisho