The most challenging, the most distressing and yet the most strangely consoling book I have read this year is Annie Dillard’s For the Time Being. It is many things: a string of knotty episodes, a litany of loss, a catalogue of catastrophe, a cry for meaning. Crisscrossing the stories of wise r

The day after returning from a conference in Washington, D.C., in late February on the persistence of hunger in the United States, I took the subway to the upper west side of Manhattan to hear Mario Cuomo speak on a similar theme. His address was part of a forum called "The Intransigence of Pov

Not AutomatonsRobert Hudnut's article on Pelagianism (2/26) begins well but soon lapses into error. The analogy that likens having faith to falling in love is seriously flawed. Hudnut's claim that we do not have to accept the gift of faith, just as we do not accept the other person's lov

Oakland Diocesan Service Offers Apology for Clergy Sex AbusePain, anger and healing surged through an Oakland gathering as Bishop John S. Cummins and other leaders of the Diocese of Oakland publicly apologized to victims of clergy sexual abuse. More than 130 people, including survivors, their famili

In a series of very readable books over the last two decades John F Haught a professor of theology at Georgetown University Washington D C has established himself as one of the most intelligent voices in the whole science-religion debate Unfortunately for him and the rest of us Haught rsquo

The right to name Supreme Court justices clearly among the most far-reaching of presidential powers has received surprisingly little analysis by historians Though the influence of a John Marshall a Roger Taney or an Earl Warren on history is vast the motives and goals of presidents in choosing

In Puerto Rico these days, religion is on the rise. Just when the populace seems fed up with partisan politics and turned off by the endless stream of scandals coming from indicted public officials, the churches and church leaders seem to have found the right formula for inspiring Puerto Ricans. Thi

The Second Vatican Council promulgated on Dec. 7, 1965, a decree on the ministry and life of priests that was entitled from its opening words Presbyterorum Ordinis. The sentence in full stated that this council "has already on several occasions drawn the attention of the world to the excellence

A number of years ago, when I was a parish priest, a woman preparing for baptism at Easter asked if she could speak with me privately. There were various issues that had been bothering her, and she wished to discuss them. I had come to know her somewhat during the preceding months and appreciated th