In the 1989 film National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Aunt Bethany (played by Mae Questal), the aunt of family patriarch Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase), travels to the Griswold family home in Chicago to celebrate Christmas. Clark asks Aunt Bethany, whose hearing is failing, to say grace before

How many times have we mumbled our way through the Nicene Creed giving not a second thought to our firm vocalized belief in the revolutionary proposition that there shall be a ldquo resurrection of the body rdquo after death and not simply some vague new life for our immortal soul How often p

It was one of those chilling moments I was seated across from my parish priest who had just gotten back from an extended ldquo time away rdquo mdash yet unexplained When I mentioned my interest in a more disciplined prayer life perhaps to buy a breviary mdash the standard daily book of prayers

David Toolan, America Editor, Dies of CancerDavid S. Toolan, S.J., an associate editor of America for many years, died of cancer on July 16 at the Jesuit infirmary at Fordham University in New York. He was 66. Father Toolan joined America in 1989 after working at Commonweal for 10 years as an associ

Perhaps the saddest person I ever met was a fellow named Benjamin. Between 1992 and 1994 I worked with the Jesuit Refugee Service in Nairobi, Kenya. My job was to help urban refugeesthat is, people who had migrated to Nairobi from countries like Sudan, Rwanda and Ugandato start small businesses and

Welfare, at least as we have known it for the last five years, expires on Sept. 30, 2002. The reauthorization process is well under way and will set the direction for social and family policy for the foreseeable future. It seems a suitable time, therefore, to evaluate the 1996 reform—“th

The bishops of the United States walked a tightrope in Dallas as they tried, during their annual spring meeting on June 13-15, to accommodate four different cultural matrices. Under the glare of the media lights representing the many publics they hoped to address, the bishops acted firmly, if not de

St. Pancras Church in Glendale, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, is directly across the street from where I live. I have given up counting the number of services since Sept. 11 that ended with the wail of bagpipes. They signal sorrow, a reminder of senseless destruction and irr

Every year the president determines how many refugees will be allowed into the United States for permanent resettlement In 2001 President Bush set the number at 70 000 But in the wake of Sept 11 the government decided to carry out a security review of the refugee screening process and shut down

Bishops Respond to Dallas Actions with Reflection, PromisesBishops around the country assured their people that they intend to make certain their dioceses follow the new policies on handling cases of sexual abuse by priests that were approved by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on June 14. In