In the oppressive heat of the midday sun, the nun in full habit held two heavy shovels. She walked just behind the gravediggers, who tried to carry with some dignity a lifeless body wrapped in old hospital bedsheets. We had arrived here in India just a few weeks before this burial.

Pope Links Fatima Secret To Assassination AttemptPope John Paul II, ordering the publication of the third secret of Fatima, believes part of it was a direct reference to the attempt made on his life in 1981, said the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Angelo Sodano. Cardinal Sodano, the highest-ra

DisengagedWhy confine our concern to killing priests (4/29)? It seems that we could say the same about every person in church ministry. The outdated paradigm threatens the soul of every director of religious education, pastoral assistant and active minister who tries to balance the increasing demand

Generalizations about races or nations, however prejudiced, usually have some basis in fact.- Peter Mansfield, The Arabs.

It might surprise many to learn that no bishop has ministered to more persons living with AIDS than Cardinal John O’Connor, who by his own report tended to countless patients at St. Clare’s Hospital. I dare say also that no bishop has directly ministered to more priests and bishops who w

In this Jubilee year, the issue of wealth distribution, especially as it relates to the larger macroeconomic issues of international debt and globalization, has received a good deal of attention and analysis. For this we should be thankful. What has not received much attention, however, are the resp

When did your anti-sweatshop work begin?We began our labor rights activities in Latin America in the early 1990’s in El Salvador and Honduras. One of our first projects was to help a local human rights organization in Honduras, called the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, to do a surv

Health care is emerging as a major campaign issue, and rightly so, because we are in trouble. The U.S. Census Bureau has found that over 44 million people lack health insurance. It is estimated that by the year 2008, the number of uninsured will have risen to 55 millionalmost a quarter of all non-el

Always fall in love with what you’re asked to accept. Take what is given and make it over your way.... The best way is through. Robert Frost

New York Says Goodbye To Cardinal O’ConnorThousands filled St. Patrick’s Cathedral for one service after another as New Yorkers said their final goodbyes to Cardinal John J. O’Connor. The 80-year-old cardinal, who died on May 3 after an eight-month battle with cancer, was archbisho