During the 19th century, Irish immigrants settled in Glens Falls, a small city along the upper reaches of the Hudson River in east central New York. The men supported their families by working in the city’s paper and textile mills. On their way home on payday they stopped off at a saloon for a

Affordable housing for low-income families—seldom in the past few decades has this essential aspect of American life been harder to come by. Construction of new government-subsidized housing remains at a virtual standstill. High unemployment rates and increased nationwide poverty are exacerbat

By a single-vote margin, the U.S. House of Representatives on Sept. 9 passed a bill that includes a school-voucher provision for low-income families in the District of Columbia. This is a small, five-year pilot program that has had several heavyweight titles. It has been rather grandly but accuratel

Last week the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued its quadrennial statement on political responsibility, Faithful Citizenship. These statements, published since 1976 one year in advance of the presidential elections (to avoid even the appearance of partisanship), have provided guidelines for

Head Start, the federally funded program for preschool children from low-income families, is now up for reauthorization by Congress. Begun in 1965 by the Office of Economic Opportunity as an eight-week summer initiative, it soon expanded into a full-year program for children age 3 to school age. It

Ethnic and regional wars, especially over the past two decades in Africa and the Balkans, have brought with them death and destruction on a massive scale. But these same destructive forces have also taken the form of widespread sexual violence as a deliberate strategy. In Sierra Leone, rape has been

Pope John Paul II’s trip to Great Britain in late May 1982 was such a smashing success that The London Times said if there were such a title as First Citizen of the World, John Paul would win it. That designation would be neither the only nor the most relevant way of describing the 263rd succe

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the election of John Paul II, we figured that if a picture is worth 1,000 words, then the only way to describe his pontificate briefly is with pictures. To see these photos, click here to display a PDF version of these pages in America.A PDF file is easy to read

There is a sense of relief in Boston, and in the rest of the country as well, now that the Archdiocese of Boston has finally settled the suits filed against it by the victims of sexual abuse. For 19 months, Boston has unfairly been perceived by many people as paradigmatic of the American church&rsqu

The evening sun is perceived as still setting when in fact it has already dipped below the horizon. Something similar happens in other contexts. A historic period, for example, may actually have ended before the people it shaped quite realize it has gone.   An instance of this is suggested almo