Many years ago now Pope John Paul II went to Lima Peru There he was met by a massive crowd of two million people Instead of the usual greetings from the President and the Cardinal two people from a shantytown stepped forward to the microphone Their names were Irene and Viktor Charo As the hug

This weekend Michael Tueth SJ a professor of communications at Fordham University in New York gave what I think was a wonderful homily at the baccalaureate Mass for graduating seniors And you don t have to be a student to appreciate it In just a few paragraphs leavened with humor he a

When seven Jesuits arrived to set up shop at 32 Washington Square West on Feb. 6, 1909, they had some distinguished company among the buildings flanking New York City's famous Washington Square Park.

Pope Benedict XVI’s recent revision of the “Prayer for the Conversion of the Jews” in the Latin text of the 1962 Good Friday liturgy set off a wave of questioning by puzzled Catholics and anxious concern among Jewish observers. Did the revival of language calling for the conversion

What’s New? I found “A Life in Theology,” by Avery Dulles, S.J. (4/21), to be somewhat disheartening, because he is dismissive of innovation and new insights, labeling some of them as deviant. “Very few new ideas, I suspect, are true,” he says. This suggests a claustrop

Deep Sadness Over Destruction in Myanmar Pope Benedict XVI expressed deep sadness and offered “heartfelt sympathy” after hearing news of “the tragic aftermath” of Cyclone Nargis, which killed tens of thousands in Myanmar. News agencies reported May 6 that more than 22,000 peo

This book is not what I expected I had anticipated a memoir but A Life With Karol is less that and more what its title page describes as ldquo a conversation rdquo Thus while the book generally advances chronologically it moves forward and backward in time as the conversation develops As a c

Over the past few weeks I ve heard three stories about the recent papal visit that I ve found especially moving First The visit of Pope Benedict XVI with Cardinal Avery Dulles S J who has been ailing in a private meeting in Cardinal Egan s suite in St Joseph s Seminary Dunwoodi

There are some odd rules in the land of publishing For example if you blurb a book that is write a few sentences of praise for the back cover or for advertisements you can t review it Strange I know Or if you have some sort of professional connection to the author when you re r

The politics of abortion took an especially nasty and bizarre turn this past week when conservative Catholic writer and law professor Doug Kmiec revealed that he had recently been denied communion because of his public endorsement of Barack Obama s candidacy Thus as in 2004 some conservative