There it was, Baltimore’s huge gulag of a jail and prison complex covering two and a half city blocks. I was looking at it from the northeast corner of St. Ignatius Church, where I was to give a talk on prison ministry that Monday evening; the sight served as a useful if painful inward prepara

It seems as if every complicated moral issue sooner or later becomes a legal issue, at least in the United States. Consider, for example, the recent tobacco litigation. The moral question is whether tobacco companies should profit by selling such a dangerous product. This moral question immediately

The world of Catholic-Jewish relations is far, far better today than it was when I was growing up in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, where Jews were the overwhelming majority. Sure, as a youngster I had some Italian, Polish, Puerto Rican and Russian friends, but I didn’t know they w

Is there anything more central to our existence than hope? And when it is denied, is there anything more disheartening? There is a poignant moment in Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man when the nameless black narrator realizes he is bereft of hope: I am invisible, understand, simply because p

While the number of refugees who are residing in a foreign country dropped worldwide in the 1990’s, during the same period civil wars, government repression and other forms of social violence led to a dramatic increase in the number of persons displaced within their own countries. In Sudan alo

Two nights before Thanksgiving, and no president-elect yet. A remarkable turn of events! Morning news anchors, cable-television pundits and op-ed sages insist that Americans are demanding a quick end to the madness. A quick end? Madness? Why, I don’t know a soul who feels that way! Most people

Bishops Join Death Penalty Moratorium Appeal to ClintonThe president of the U.S. bishops’ conference and the chairman of its Domestic Policy Committee are among 40 prominent Americans who have asked President Clinton to declare a moratorium on federal executions. The first execution since 1963

Ecumenism in spiritual book publishing is alive and well. We are increasingly presented with spiritual reading intended for all ChristiansCatholic, Protestant and Orthodox. If there is any truth to the axiom lex orandi, lex credendi (our way of believing mirrors our way of praying), one is tempted t

Envision, if you will, the perfect Catholic church building. For some this would be an exercise of the imagination, one that takes into account the person’s idea of the sacred, of beauty, of practicality. For others it may be an exercise of the memory, recalling the space, sight-lines, colors