This series for Lent and Easter focuses on the world of devotions in the life of contemporary believers. America asked a number of writers, many of them younger Catholics, to speak about a favorite devotionits history, its place in the writer’s life and its possible role in the life of contemp

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

John L rsquo Heureux began his career as a novelist writing about leaving the priesthood in the 70 rsquo s in Tight White Collar and The Clang Birds I was then America rsquo s literary editor and the magazine published reviews of both of them The second book was reviewed by Doris Grumbach as I r

In October 1927, with the release of “The Jazz Singer,” sound movies became commercially viable. In October 1929 the stock market crashed. Strange as it seems, the two events are closely related in cultural history. During the final two years of the boom, the movie industry had the money

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

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,

Traditional devotions can provoke a wide variety of reactions among contemporary Catholics. For many, the devotional life discovered during childhood has never lost its appeal. For some it has always remained on the fringes of their Catholicism. For still others it seems inconsistent with a mature f

By the time of Gregory the Great (died 604), the Litany of Saints, first of the great Latin litanies, was a full-blown, dress-up affair. Best vestments and all of that. Copes and chasubles. Embroidered and brocaded. Nauters and thuribles. Obviously, it was a prayer for the clergy; they shared with t

It was a bold move. With numerous Vatican officials and Pope John Paul II himself vigorously voicing criticism of a possible war with Iraq, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See and former Republican national chairman, Jim Nicholson, invited Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute in Washin

My mind, like the minds of many Americans, could easily be consumed with thoughts of attacking Iraq. There is no end of opinions, information and disinformation about why it should or should not happen. What’s interesting is that the more we learn about incremental Iraqi compliance and opposit