Weakland Asked to Stop Cathedral RenovationsThe Vatican has asked Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland, O.S.B., of Milwaukee to suspend renovation of that diocese’s cathedral in response to complaints from critics of the project who hired a canon lawyer to press their case in Rome. The Vatican wants

The tale begins in the spring of 1945 when a war-weary world began to prepare for peace and dream of freedom The delegates of 50 nations who gathered in San Francisco that April forged a charter for the United Nations that pledged each nation to promote the rights of all individuals No one had y

The buses in Dublin these days are displaying advertisements from the pro-life movement demanding a new constitutional referendum on abortion. The Taoiseach (prime minister), Bertie Ahern, has promised to meet that demand, but short of a political crisis that would force his hand, the odds in favor

On his second working day in office, President George W. Bush presented what he called a blueprint for school reform. On May 23, the House by a vote of 384 to 45 passed an education bill that Education Secretary Rod Paige said was a great bipartisan bill.This diplomatic praise puffed up the legislat

Ever since Seattle erupted into a free-trade fighting zone during the World Trade Organization’s 1999 meeting, the very scheduling of a global economic gathering has become a provocation to activists worldwide. What happened suddenly in Seattle has been transformed into rituals of resistance l

Looking over the shoulder of the police detective at his computer monitor, I felt my stomach churn. He was posing as a 14-year-old girl in a chat room. Within moments, a strange man, age 42, was making a proposition. With so many positive media reports focused on the miracles of the Internet as a co

In novels such as Mary Reilly and Italian Fever Valerie Martin made her reputation balancing historical locations and characters with the social detail that we expect from comedies of manners She has excelled in tracing how undercurrents of emotion become visible flirting with the Gothic traditi

Consistory of Cardinals Meets with PopeIn the largest meeting of its kind ever held at the Vatican, more than 150 cardinals joined Pope John Paul II to discuss questions of collegiality, dialogue and evangelization in the church. The pope opened the consistory, which met from May 21 to 24, with a pr

When I asked my friend’s little daughter what her dad enjoyed doing in his spare time, she didn’t miss a beat. Anything to do with me, she beamed. I rejoiced for her, of course, but I also felt a stinging regret. My dad’s free time rarely included his two daughters. And although he