Magazine

The day after Arnold Schwarzenegger announced to Jay Leno and the world that he was running for governor of Californiatoughest decision since getting a bikini wax in 1978Andrew Sullivan, erstwhile conservative Catholic who supported the war in Iraq and considers leaving the church over gay marriage,

Recently The New York Times writer Peter Steinfels offered a considered examination of the dynamic tension between Pope John Paul II’s moral leadership during Operation Iraqi Freedom and the exercise of papal diplomacy. Morally and religiously, the pope could make sweeping public claims for pe

The city of Shenzhen, an hour’s train ride from Hong Kong, was until recently a sleepy fishing village. In 1979 Deng Xiaoping designated this hamlet and a vast tract of surrounding territory as a special economic zone. With generous tax incentives in place for foreign investment, the city has

Seventy years ago a fateful meeting occurred in Rome. The Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII), and Germany’s vice chancellor, Franz von Papen, formally signed a concordat between the Holy See and the German Reich on July 20, 1933.

When the bell rings on Monday evenings, the adult students in my class gather their book bags and rush out—eager to end their long day and go home. I shout after them, “Have a good night” and “Get home safely.” They wave back and tell me the same—in English. &nbsp

When my father passed through the gates of Ellis Island as a boy, the life that awaited him would be new and exciting yet fated with a grinding scarcity. For decades, all Dad had to show for it was hard work, more hard work and very little money. Still, before he knew it, this once faceless immigran

Symbolic landscapes shift during the years. For a century or more, starting perhaps with Mark Twain, American writers have looked to the South as a metaphor for failed expectations and ruinous nostalgia. William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams, Flannery O’Connor, Thomas Wolfe, Walker Percy and