The welfare reform law of 1996 comes up for reauthorization by Congress a year from now. When enacted, it represented an end to the three-decades-old entitlement to public assistance for poor Americans, who have subsequently been pushed toward work in the expectation that they would become self-suff
We’ve had two new grandchildren born in the space of a month. Round, rosy bundles of health, they are welcome additions to our growing family. We are blessed and humbled by the gift of their little lives. Initially, the grandma gig was a frightening possibility, not unlike parenting the first
Dorothee Soelle is well known for her seminal book on suffering Entitled simply Suffering it provoked much-needed discussion on the relation of theology to suffering In the winter years of a long career as a theologian as an activist in peace and ecological movements as an opponent of every for
The trial of Slobodan Milosevic dramatizes the new worldwide demand for accountability for public officials who violate internationally recognized human rights That demand is behind the international court and may soon be ratified by enough votes to make it operational worldwide These momentous ev
Empire Statesman begins appropriately enough by evoking the 1928 September night when a flaming cross greeted Alfred E Smith then governor of New York as his presidential campaign train entered Oklahoma When Smith is remembered today if at all it is for the virulent nativist outburst encount
Today rsquo s Gospel concludes a diptych on prayer begun last Sunday in the familiar Lukan pattern that juxtaposes a story in which a woman is a central character with another that has a male protagonist It also provides a bridge to next Sunday when another tax collector is praised The beginning o
This year a special poignancy attends our annual celebration of the communion of the saints as we recall the saints triumphant and mourn loved ones who have died Wave after wave of images of death destruction and seemingly unending rituals of funerals and memorial services wash over our conscious