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Our Lady of Guadalupe: Contemporary Catholics on Traditional Devotions
Here in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los ángeles, The City of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels, a city most people know as Los Angeles, one cannot go long without encountering Our Lady of Guadalupe. She gazes tranquilly from the stucco walls of convenience stores, from the black dashboards
Letters
Letters

Right to Life

Your editorial on gun control (2/10) misses the value of firearms in preserving human life. Just as we support the right to life of the unborn and the elderly, the lives of bus and cab drivers, gas station attendants and convenience store clerks are equally precious. Such people often must work at night in dangerous urban or even rural areas, becoming easy targets for predators, whom the courts and law enforcement cannot control.

Each year between one and two million armed Americans defend themselves and their families from injury, sexual assault and death, often without even firing their guns. Would you prefer to condemn them to submit to the savagery of criminals by disarming them?

The solution to violent crime involving firearms and other deadly weapons is to get the criminals who carry or use them in crimes off our streets by long prison sentences. Imposing liability standards on cities, police, judges, parole boards and probation officers would inhibit the Turn Them Loose Bruce types from releasing dangerous felons into the population. The prospect of million-dollar lawsuits by victims and their families would make our society far safer than any gun control scheme that merely keeps decent people helpless in the face of violent criminals.

William J. Brennan

Politics & SocietyEditorials
In the Iraq War, do Americans have to choose between God and country?
With the exception of some Southern Baptist leaders and mega-church pastors, nearly all U.S. churches are opposing war with Iraq. This has forced many Americans to wonder if loyalty to God and country are now in conflict. Must they choose between the military adventures of their president and the mo
Vatican II: Substantive Teaching
I appreciate the invitation of the editors of America to respond to the article in this issue by John W. O’Malley, S.J., “Vatican II: Official Norms,” and to the very substantive letters published on March 17 commenting on my own article “Vatican II: The Myth and the Reality
News
Signs of the Times
Confessional Seal Under Attack In Several StatesThe crisis in the U.S. Catholic Church caused by the scandal of sexual abuse by clergy has sparked a variety of state legislative initiatives to strengthen child abuse laws, including efforts in five states to force a priest to violate the seal of conf
Christ and/or Aquarius?
A document entitled Jesus Christ, the Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian Reflection on the “New Age” was jointly released by four Vatican offices on Feb. 3 in Rome as a 90-page booklet complete with a select glossary of New Age terms.   There is a chorus of voices in the text,
Pilgrimage: Contemporary Catholics on Traditional Devotions
Among the gifts I received upon my ordination to the priesthood, one that has proven unexpectedly valuable is the Book of Blessings. Its prayers bring to bear on all moments of life the wisdom of Scripture and tradition. I realized this when searching for fitting words to begin our pilgrimage to Wor
Letters
Letters

Spread the Faith

Dr. Richard J. Rodeheffer’s article (2/3) is superb. The obvious influence of the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum is most refreshing. As significant is Dr. Rodeheffer’s faith rekindled in essence: don’t keep the faith, but spread it.

Hugh J. Mullin

Faith in Focus
A Fly on the Wall at America
Last year, three times per week, I would stumble out of the 59th Street subway station in midtown Manhattan, stupefied by the competing traffic jam of landmarks. Trump Tower shot up from my left as Christopher Columbus balanced himself on my right, claiming dominion over his stone pillar and the int
Editorials
War and the Economy
The economy continues to slump, and business commentators point to fears of war as the cause of depressed stock prices and lower consumer confidence. This must be disconcerting to Marxist theorists, who claim that all wars are started by capitalists seeking profits. True, some parts of the economy w