Alison is nearly three years old. She was adopted last year by a single woman, Shannon, who is a campus minister at a Jesuit college. Both mother and adopted daughter have curly blond hair, round blue eyes, and fair skinthey look so alike that most people assume they are biologically related. This i

When President Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty in 1964, the homeless did not appear in the nation’s vocabulary, except perhaps as bums or hobos. The visibility of homeless people increased in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, when nearly a half-million hospital beds were c

At a recent conference on managed care, one of the speakers, a physician, complained that all too often we don’t call patients “patients” any more. These days patients are referred to as either customers, consumers, clients or covered lives. As is often the case at such physician m

Bishops Tackle Liturgy, Global Warming, Mideast, MandatumThe U.S. Catholic bishops tackled issues ranging from global warming to the Middle East crisis, from liturgy to doctrine to moral teaching at their spring meeting on June 14-16 in Atlanta, Ga. The meeting was their final session under the name

Nearly a century ago W E B Du Bois predicted that the problem of the 20th century would be the problem of the color line This was no less the problem of the 19th century But the contours of racism drastically changed in the 20th century as blacks moved north to Detroit and Chicago from the pla

I rsquo m always drawn to books that tell of people who step out of their comfort zones and live on the edgeespecially for the sake of the Gospel Spiritual passion is an amazing power and these stories of St Ignatius himself and his faithful sons in prison show that spiritual power at work We se

Over the past few years, leaning and loafing at your ease, as Walt Whitman would say, when you pondered the coming of the year 2001, what came to mind? Did you imagine yourself strapping on your personal jet pack, à la George Jetson, and zooming off to a high-tech job in some space pad? Or did you

A silver anniversary is evocative of endurance along (one hopes) with bearing fruit, bonding and blessings. Such evocations and reminiscences came to mind this year on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the National Association for Lay Ministry, a Catholic organization in which I was active for

We pastors have been meeting in focus groups around the country, trying to cope with the stress and strains of pastoral leadership. Though a small group, only 50 in all, we are from seven different parts of the country and represent the feelings and desires of many other pastors like ourselves. Afte