The Key WordCongratulations to Francis A. Sullivan, S.J., for his article, “The Magisterium in the New Millennium” (8/27). Father Sullivan feels he has no “prophetic gifts” with which to foresee how the magisterium will be exercised in the future. I believe he is a prophet fo

U.S. trade policies must be “fully aligned with our values,” the new United States Trade Representative, Robert B. Zoellick, said in an interview published in The Washington Post on March 13. “I’m convinced, whether it relates to child labor, forced labor, or HIV/AIDS—a

A study by Creighton University’s Center for Marriage and Family in 1999 indicates that today roughly 40 percent of all Catholics marry non-Catholics.

About a year ago I wrote in this space about the challenge of interfaith marriages and families, and to my delight, I received several affirming letters from priests and lay people. They agreed that the church’s response to such unions will be among the defining issues of 21st-century Catholic

While serving as the deputy chaplain of the U.S. Marine Corps, with supervisory responsibility for some 250 chaplains from some 60 different faith groups, I was discouraged by the disproportionate number of Catholic chaplains who were committing offenses that resulted either in their imprisonment or

When I was an English teacher in public high schools in the decade from 1957 to 1967, one issue I took to heart was the question of my own role in affecting the values of my students. There was hardly a piece of American or English literature in the high school curriculum that didn’t lead to t

The first lecture I ever gave on the topic of the church’s magisterium was given in Latin to my students at the Gregorian University more than 40 years ago. Little did I think then that one day the Latin word magisterium would become so commonly used, at least by Catholics, that I could give a

Without dismissing the importance of other leaders in the history of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, it is fair to say that Dorothy Day remains, at the dawn of the new millennium, the radical conscience of American Catholicism.

Bishops’ Statements on Stem Cell ResearchHere are excerpts from statements of various U.S. bishops in reaction to President Bush’s decision, announced on Aug. 9, to permit federal funding of embryonic stem cell research using existing stem cell lines.Bishop Joseph A. Fiorenza of Galvesto

The story is told of the Irish woman, 40 years married and the mother of seven, who left church after hearing a sermon from a young priest on marriage and motherhood and remarked, "Sure and I wish I knew as little about it as he does." Having spent the last 17 years working on Bible transl