The young man was clearly uneasy. Most people would insist that he had no cause for worry. After all, he would soon receive his M.B.A. from a very prestigious business school, had already been offered a contract by a large investment banking firm and, if he accepts it, would have a starting salary o

Nine years ago, amid higher levels of political violence than had ever occurred before, white South Africans went to the polls. This was not an election but a referendum: should the negotiation process initiated in February 1990 continue? The result was an overwhelming yes. Somehow we realized that

In an article about maturity they contributed to Robert Nugent’s book A Challenge to Love (1983), the psychologists James and Evelyn Whitehead use the metaphor of journey or passage to explain the loss and gain or peril and possibility that accompany significant moments in life. At the death o

The re-election in October of a former Communist, Aleksander Kwasniewski, to a five-year term as president of Poland should be a lesson to the Polish church, according to Stanislaw Obirek, S.J., editor of the Polish review of spirituality, Zycie Duchowe. For me and others, Father Obirek said, that w

Art is a blood sport. Really. Someone, something must be sacrificed during the game, while heartless spectators stare in fascination at the suffering orchestrated for their amusement. Just think how many of the world’s greatest artists made a demolition derby of their lives, systematically wre

In The Soul Knows No Bars Drew Ledera professor of Eastern and Western philosophy at Loyola College in Marylanddescribes his experience as a teacher at the Maryland Penitentiary in Baltimore Others involved in prison education have also written of their on-site work but this is a very different t

During his recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land Pope John Paul II enacted three iconic moments that symbolized to the world the new relationship between Catholicismalso Christianityand Judaism and the Jewish people These were 1 his shaking hands with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak which symbo

Theologian Calls Vatican Investigation a ‘Great Suffering’Though ultimately cleared of doctrinal error, a Belgian theologian, Jacques Dupuis, S.J., said a two-and-and-a-half-year Vatican investigation of his book on non-Christian religions had been “a very great suffering.” T

The voice startled me. I was driving down a busy street in Atlanta on my way to the grocery store, when a little voice told me to visit the ornate church on the hill. I had attended a festival at the church, St. John Chrysostom Melkite Church, many years ago. I knew the congregation was Catholic, bu