I wonder if there is a new fascination for books about books especially those books we call classics Recently a group of sketches by Italo Calvino was published as Why Read the Classics Not long ago David Denby offered Great Books My Adventures With Homer Rousseau Woolf and Other Indestructib

John Cornwell rsquo s latest effort at faithful constructive criticism following his highly controversial Hitler rsquo s Pope focuses on the factions and divisions within Roman Catholicism that virtually every Catholic experiences to a greater or lesser degree In a brief first chapter A Catholi

We sometimes imagine that the besieged and occasionally violent form of religiosity known as fundamentalism is a uniquely Islamic trait. This is not the case. As Karen Armstrong has written, fundamentalism is a global fact and has surfaced in every major faith in response to the problems of modernit

Different FindingsWhile I agree with the Rev. James Garneau’s basic premise in “More Priestly Fraternity” (10/22) that priests need and deserve communities of support, my own research and other studies on seminaries over the past 20 years would yield different findings on a number

Synod RoundupCalling the Synod of Bishops that met in October almost a new beginning for the church, Pope John Paul II urged bishops to promote church teaching courageously and work for church unity. During a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica at the closing of the synod on Oct. 27, the pope praise

A case currently before the California Supreme Court, Catholic Charities of Sacramento Inc. v. The Superior Court of Sacramento County (Department of Managed Health Care et al.), deals with that state’s Women’s Contraception Equity Act of 1999. It is attracting a good deal of attention a

The country was in an uproar. Hidden somewhere in the midst of the civilian population, indeed, in the midst of the capital itselfthe capital of the strongest nation in the worldwere young men armed with grievances and bombs. They had entered the country legally and were organized in small cells des

Letters to the Editor Real CollegialityFor the last five years I have served with the presbyterate described by the Rev. James F. Garneau in “More Priestly Fraternity” (10/22). The priests of Raleigh are uncommonly united, centrist and admirable for their dedication in the swirl of explo

Whether we want them or not, birthdays roll around once a year on the very same day. They serve as signposts for our journey through life—or, as some might term them, mortality markers. At America House we celebrate birthdays for staff and community members on the fourth Thursday of each month

At his 80th birthday party last year, celebrated with dozens of friends in the garden of his home in northwestern Connecticut, Isaac Stern asked me to sit next to him at dinner. Rarely have I felt so honored. His luminous personality represented to me the perfect combination of a monumentally succes