Conceived as an instrument of military tacticians, nurtured as a way to disseminate academic papers, imagined as a vast library, touted as a new economic frontier, the Internet has confounded all who sought to define its significance narrowly in purely practical terms. If we have learned anything, i
The just war tradition is fast becoming a contested field of ideas in Catholic circles. The growing division of the Catholic community on issues of war and peace was on clear display at the annual “Social Ministries” meeting in the nation’s capital (Feb. 24-27), sponsored by the U.
This spring I was in Pakistan doing research on religious rituals among the country’s Shia Muslim population. As a Christian with an interest in interfaith dialogue, I make it a habit when I travel in Muslim countries also to learn about local Christian communities.On a beautiful Sunday mornin
Houses of hospitality on the land”—this is how Dorothy Day described the Catholic Worker farms that began to spring up in the 1930’s. In May, I had occasion to visit one of them and experience a weekend’s hospitality at the Peter Maurin Farm in Marlboro, N.Y. The farm, named
On Sundays I sometimes pass the Church of the Ascension on lower Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and I generally pause to admire its Gothic Revival brownstone exterior fronted by a small courtyard with boxwood bushes. But it was not until late one Sunday afternoon in May that I went inside—drawn by
God in the Ripples and Waves
We want to compliment Valerie Schultz on her excellent reflection, God in the Tangled Sheets (7/1). We heartily endorse her point of view, except for two small quibbles. The first concerns the parents of those called to celibacy. One of our children is
At Home in the Cosmos, the title of the last book written by David S. Toolan, S.J., can also serve to describe his life. When our longtime associate editor and treasured friend died on July 16, he did not know that his book had recently won an award for theological writing from the Catholic Press As