Welfare, at least as we have known it for the last five years, expires on Sept. 30, 2002. The reauthorization process is well under way and will set the direction for social and family policy for the foreseeable future. It seems a suitable time, therefore, to evaluate the 1996 reform—“th
The bishops of the United States walked a tightrope in Dallas as they tried, during their annual spring meeting on June 13-15, to accommodate four different cultural matrices. Under the glare of the media lights representing the many publics they hoped to address, the bishops acted firmly, if not de
Perhaps the saddest person I ever met was a fellow named Benjamin. Between 1992 and 1994 I worked with the Jesuit Refugee Service in Nairobi, Kenya. My job was to help urban refugeesthat is, people who had migrated to Nairobi from countries like Sudan, Rwanda and Ugandato start small businesses and
Another Word
Every time I thought I just couldn’t handle another word, article or program on our current scandal, America would appear on my desk with its plenitude of scholarly, sane, informative articles. Your coverage over the past weeks has been outstanding! Each issue
An antique wooden plaque in one of our offices reads: “It is wonderful that the First Amendment protects freedom of speech. It is even more wonderful that the First Amendment doesn’t make anyone listen.” Most Americans would agree with both parts of the message. But on June 17 the
In my 32 years as a priest, I have been threatened by the Ku Klux Klan, have been thrown out of a ministerial association because I am a Catholic, have had fundamentalist preachers run me down by name on the radio and have had a knife pulled on me in church for a homily I gave. I have also seen one
ldquo Take religion away and the Irish are a pretty friendly people rdquo a Protestant woman from Derry remarked to Marcus Tanner the author of this rather unfocussed history of religious conflict in Ireland Tanner the assistant foreign editor of the London Independent came to the project as