Rarely in our society do individuals choose to risk going to jail because they are protesting what they consider to be unjust practices and institutions. But if they do make such a decision and are imprisoned, how does this affect them, their supporters, others who learn of it and even their cause i

Shakespeare rsquo s Brutus says There is a tide in the affairs of men Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune It is more than 30 years since Kevin Phillips published The Emerging Republican Majority accurately forecasting a deep-seated shift of American sentiment toward the conservative

The day after I finished reading Margaret Silf rsquo s Wayfaring I had an encounter with a young woman who helped me experience the value of this magnificent book about journeying I was riding my bicycle along the Boston side of the Charles River when I saw a woman whose eyes were filled with tear

It is not often that one finds a book on Asian Catholics written by an American and published in the United States that is not only informative and thought-provoking but also presents a deep insight into the developments in the Asian Catholic Church that have thus far garnered very little attention

In the first century, Peter had a dream in Joppa, a strange dream that encouraged him to eat prohibited food that was common and unclean. This was not kosher. Then he heard a knock at the door. A group of gentiles, sent by Cornelius, asked him to come with them to Caesarea. He agreed, mystified by t

Why and how did the celibate state became a requirement for ordination?

Eight bishops recently sent a proposal to the administrative committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for the convening of a plenary council of the bishops of the United States. Coincidentally, the editors of Church magazine, of whom I am one, circulated an editorial also calling for a p

Parents make no end of compromises to accommodate the dubious wishes and tastes of their children (despite any number of memoirs that insist otherwise), and I am no exception. Long car rides invariably lead to pleas from the back seat for a musical distraction from the dreaded are-we-there-yet syndr

It was unusually hot that July afternoon. Cara had just asked me for some more water so that the sand would pack better. Sweating, frustrated and with a two-year-old getting the best of me, I said to myself, “What are you doing?” Here I was stuck in the backyard, trapped in a sandbox, an

Michael Crosby is widely appreciated for his many gifts as a lecturer and author in the area of biblical spirituality He invariably brings to his audiences both clarity and commitment The clarity flows not only from his rhetorical prowess but from his considerable mastery of spirituality especial