We have a policy at America of not running many obituaries. The practice saves the editors from agonizing over who gets one and who does not. Of course there are some obvious people who deserve obituaries or appreciations. Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa, for example. Over the last year the theo

Robert Meza is a 40-year-old Arizona state legislator. The district he represents covers portions of central Phoenix, including both middle-class areas of old Phoenix and poor ones populated by Mexican-Americans. During his first term, he heard complaints from those Mexican-American constituents abo

Since I moved to New York City a year ago, I have taken to walking after dinner around the midtown neighborhood in which I live. It’s especially glorious in the summer; the setting sun lends everything a generous glow. Winter brings early darkness, trudging and multiple layers. In the daytime,

In recent years, even at Christmastime, there has been little good news from the Holy Land, but on Nov. 19 Latin-rite Catholics in the Holy Land had reason to celebrate. That day they welcomed Bishop Fouad Twal, until recently bishop of Tunis, as coadjutor patriarch of Jerusalem. Bishop Twal, a Jord

The Catholic Worker is just around the corner from my rectory, and ever since I moved to that neighborhood on the Lower East Side, I have felt blessed by the proximity. I should really say Catholic Workers, with an s, because there are actually two Worker communities a stone’s throw from each

"Spots of time" is what the poet William Wordsworth called those places that imprint themselves so deeply into our minds that simply remembering them can lift our hearts - in other words, holy places. I thought about that phrase as I left Kentucky last month after visiting the Abbey of Get