Flight From New Orleans
Getting out of New Orleans has never been as easy as getting in. The city has too much magnetic charm. At least it used to. Expecting in this case, however, that getting back in might be harder than getting out, my Jesuit community and I had decided to ride out Hurricane Katrina at our downtown…
Katrina’s Rainbow
New Orleans was the first city that felt like family to me, and because I had moved so much growing up, family was the only thing I understood as home. A year after I graduated from Loyola University New Orleans, I was in New York City serving a volunteer year and planning to move back…
A Time for Empathy
The novelist Richard Ford, in an opinion piece in The New York Times on Sept. 4, ruminating on the devastation of his home town, called New Orleans a city beyond the reach of empathy. For a while it looked that way. On Aug. 25, 2005, the people of New Orleans were told to evacuate their…
Healing Through Bankruptcy
A church purified and humbled, yet more resolved to carry on Christ’s work—that is how I would describe the Diocese of Tucson as it emerges from the process of Chapter 11 federal bankruptcy reorganization. The bankruptcy process, ending with a plan of reorganization confirmed by the judg
A Blueprint for Change
For two extraordinary days in the summer of 2004, 175 religious and lay leaders gathered in Philadelphia to wrestle with the future of the Catholic Church in this country. The site of the conference – the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania – could not have been more appropriate, given
Easing Abortion’s Pain
Where will the next great battle be fought in the struggle for the hearts and minds of the American public regarding abortion? Perhaps it will be ignited by the recent proposal of a law that would oblige abortion providers to tell women about the pain that unborn children experience during this proc
Reborn From Ashes
The cedars of Lebanon have experienced the axes of many civilizations upon their trunks over the centuries. Conquerors have repeatedly invaded the land, reigned over its inhabitants and reaped its fruits. Time and again, however, the Lebanese have managed to be reborn from the ashes. Today they rise
Of Many Things
Of Many Things
"We spent our first day in New York City in a soup kitchen at St. Francis Xavier Church in Lower Manhattan,” said Sabiha Ahmad. “I felt the sadness of the hundreds of hungry people gathered there as I buttered stale bagels and sorted used clothing,” she added. A graduate stude
Letters
Letters
Name-Calling
After reading Of Many Things (8/29) by James Martin, S.J., about his trip to Spain, I laughed out loud at his ending. What a gift that the trip to Loyola was a confirmation of your Jesuit vocation. However, being called an idiot was truly a confirmation of your vocation to become a disciple of Christ!…
Editorials
A Culture of Life
Our church and society stand in need of renewed and sustained discussion regarding an ethic of life. Serious conversation has largely devolved into sloganeering and sound bites. The prevailing metaphor, culture of life versus culture of death, has galvanized people’s imaginations and inspired
Faith in Focus
Emotional Oology
A woman is born with all of her eggs. Unlike male sperm, which are produced continually and by the millions throughout a man’s life, a woman’s immature eggs are contained in follicles in her newborn ovaries. Over the course of her reproductive years, 300 to 500 eggs will mature. Each mon
Books
Practical Spiritual Resources
These books are the first two titles in The Ignatian Impulse Series a new series offered by Ave Maria Press ldquo By providing brief readable and engaging books rdquo the publisher tells us the series ldquo presents the spirituality of Ignatius of Loyola as a practical resource for spiritual
A Sacred Trust
It is no secret that in the last 40 years there has been a steep decline in the number of clergy working in parishes as well as religious congregations staffing schools and other Catholic institutions In parishes the women and men filling the roles once performed exclusively by clergy and religiou
Poetry
Pater Gerardus M. Hopkins, S.J.
September’s end 1877,
The Word
Divine T.L.C.
There is something exotic about a vineyard But then I am from the Midwest where the landscape is dotted with dairy farms And I am a city girl who never experienced the rigors or disappointments associated with cultivating a crop I do remember that like many others my grandfather made wine in
News
Signs of the Times
Women Religious Call for Withdrawal From IraqThe Leadership Conference of Women Religious has called on the U.S. government to develop a responsible plan for the withdrawal of troops in Iraq and to redirect needed resources to meet human needs at home and in other parts of the world. In a statement
Politics
Faith
Culture
Vatican
Scripture
Podcasts