Back in the day, when everybody was 12 years oldwell, that’s how it seemed to mewe had a colorful expression designed to convey our undiluted skepticism of a peer’s ill-considered and overly ambitious plans. O.K., we’d say, it’s your funeral. It was a handy way to distance ou

A couple of months ago, I wrote a gloomy, mid-winter’s column about a depressing round of Catholic school closings in and around my home in New Jersey. I referred to the early months of the calendar year as the saddest time of year for many Catholic school students, because often that is when

Like the Irish before them, today's immigrants are willing to work hard for a better life.

For parents and students in struggling Catholic schools, winter surely is the cruelest season. For it is now, in the first quarter of the year, that many parents and children learn that their school - for so many, their refuge - will not reopen its doors in September. Actually, this is a best-case s

Just after Christmas, and just before James Frey became the most discussed writer of fiction in American letters today, I was playing a Harry Potter board game with my kids. Now, I know very little about Harry and his friends, which is my loss. But playing along at least allowed the kids to believe

Christmas was still a couple of weeks away on this December evening in New Jersey. Those intrepid reporters employed by the Weather Channel were deployed in various stormy locales, warning folks in the Northeast to batten down the hatches, or whatever one does when a snowstorm is imminent. This sort