The Gulag Museum in Russia, the Slave House (Maison des Esclaves) in Senegal, the Terezín Memorial in the Czech Republic: what could these places have in common? They all are what have come to be known as sites of conscience. And each represents issues involving human rights; hence the use of the w
Much of the work to be done in the wake of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ new document on lay ecclesiastical ministry is on the practical and pastoral level. The National Association of Lay Ministry raised some tough questions about Co-Workers in the Vineyard of the Lord (November 2005) when they
In the latest of my weekly telephone conversations with a colleague who lives in France, the first question she asked was, What do you think of the pope and Islam? Rarely inclined to talk politics, she was testing me out. And my response was testing her as well. Well, I think he could have said it d
The popular refrain "Everything old is new" again seems to characterize increasing segments of book publishing since the turn of the millennium. Thanks to Loyola Classics, for example, a character named Mr. Blue, a contemporary Francis-esque gallant monk without an Order has emerged from a
Love of Learning
How happy I was to see your reference to Alma Miller, R.S.C.J., in the editorial, The People’s Schools (9/18). It was a privilege to be both her student and a dear friend, with whom I corresponded weekly throughout her life. Mother Miller demanded and expected the
Those who take an apocalyptic view of the campaign against international terrorism like to cite the historian Samuel Huntington’s prediction of a "clash of civilizations." Commentators sympathetic to this view applauded Pope Benedict XVI’s address at the University of Regensbur
In the highly charged and fertile theological world out of which Vatican II was born there was widespread agreement that the Catholic Church needed to rethink itself Stale Thomistic recitations seemed out of step with emerging ways of looking at Christ the world the liturgy the role of both ord