St. Augustine was probably not the first, and he was certainly not the last to remark that even pagans believe that Jesus died. It is only Christians who believe that after death he rose to a new life. The joy that is awakened by this belief in the Resurrection is not supposed to be just a seasonal

The Second Vatican Council promulgated on Dec. 7, 1965, a decree on the ministry and life of priests that was entitled from its opening words Presbyterorum Ordinis. The sentence in full stated that this council "has already on several occasions drawn the attention of the world to the excellence

A number of years ago, when I was a parish priest, a woman preparing for baptism at Easter asked if she could speak with me privately. There were various issues that had been bothering her, and she wished to discuss them. I had come to know her somewhat during the preceding months and appreciated th

It appears as though the keepers of the world’s oil supply have decided to give us a break after all. Meeting in Vienna, the assembled princes (I didn’t notice any princesses) of petrol announced that they will increase production just as American motorists are beginning to dream of summ

A League in SyncJames Martin, S.J., offers a comprehensive overview of anti-Catholicism in America and an excellent analysis of its root causes (The Last Acceptable Prejudice? 3/25). His position that the Catholic League is too overheated, however, deserves a response.Our style is not out of sync wi

On the way as a guest to the annual meeting of the Chrysostom Society a community of Christian writers that includes novelists poets biographers and essayists I toted along this newly arrived book--oil to Houston perhaps By the time the plane landed in that city I had finished the seven grac

Agnes Browne is a Dublin widow with seven children six sons struggling to see her offspring into maturity in the Dublin of the early 1970 rsquo s It was the time of the first lurch toward prosperity that would anticipate the present era of the Celtic Tiger in which the standard of living of Irel

The death of the Jesuit moral theologian Richard A. McCormick at 77 forces an uncommon sadness not only on family and friends but on the world of scholarship as well. For in his own field Father McCormick has provided a remarkable example of five facets that should characterize the genuine Catholic

Vermont Bishop Decries Passage of Civil Unions’ BillBishop Kenneth A. Angell of Burlington said a bill approved by the Vermont House allowing civil unions between homosexuals is simply same-sex marriage under another name. The bishop said the 76-to-69 vote made him feel the way he supposed a m

One February day last year, I was working at my office as Dominican formation director, when I received a call from Karen Pollard, B.V.M., of the St. Louis Archdiocesan Criminal Justice Ministry. She told me that a prisoner on death row in Potosi Correctional Institute, about 70 miles from St. Louis