Every chance I get, I read. But why? For many reasons, of course: to educate myself, for aesthetic pleasure, to gather information and, underlying all the rest, out of a deeply ingrained sense of duty. I suppose a sense of duty is wrapped up in almost everything I do, including reading. Like any pro

Cardinal Joseph Bernardin articulated a consistent ethic of life, which included opposition to both abortion and the death penalty, in 1985. Ten years later, in his encyclical The Gospel of Life, Pope John Paul II taught that opposing capital punishment should be part of a pro-life witness for a cul

Cardinal Says Boff’s Ideas Still Alive 15 Years After SilencingFifteen years after the Vatican silenced a Brazilian theologian for holding that the one true church can exist outside the Catholic Church, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said the idea continues to circulate. The cardinal, who is prefec

President Clinton’s State of the Union address on Jan. 27 left Republicans and Democrats in agreement on at least two points: The speech was very long, and its delivery was a great performance. It was bound to be a long speech, because in pursuit of his two main purposes Mr. Clinton had a lot

Soon after the U.S. Catholic bishops passed the revised version of the Application of Ex Corde Ecclesiae on Nov. 17, 1999, several newspapers, including The New York Times, phoned me for a reaction. In each instance, the reporter asked if I intended to request a mandate from the local bishop. I indi

Chinese Ordain Five Bishops Without Vatican ApprovalThe government-approved church in China ordained five new bishops without papal approval. The ordination ceremony took place on Jan. 6, just hours before Pope John Paul II ordained 12 bishops in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Church officials

Over two million people have lost their lives and over four million have been displaced in the war waged by the government of Sudan against its own people in the south. It is arguably the greatest humanitarian catastrophe in the world, dwarfingat least in terms of casualtiesthe recent crises in Koso

Billy Joel once said in an interview on "60 Minutes" that he thinks of his songs as his children. He remarked that some of them go on to become doctors and lawyers (presumably the Top 40 Hits), while others grow up to be bums. I wonder if Billy believes that any of his "kids" cou

Pedro Arrupe had the gift of making the Ignatian life not only credible but infectious.

On the 23rd anniversary of the great Jesuit's passing, an excerpt from an article that was included in a special issue devoted to Father Pedro Arrupe on the occasion of his death in 1991.