Jesuit education fomented in me a rebellious mind and spirit. It forever altered my frame of reference: introducing a Catholic boy who lived safe in the knowledge of good and evil to a catholic worldview that held that all things are gifts from God, and transforming a basically docile open-mindednes
When word leaked out that ABC television had commissioned the actor Leonardo DiCaprio to interview President Clinton for a special Earth Day broadcast, the network’s top news executives huffed and puffed and said that surely nobody at ABC news would be so stupidtheir word, not mineto enlist a
I’m not sure what to do with the Easter season. I’m more comfortable, if that’s the right word, with Lent’s symbolic richness—dust, ashes, desert, wandering—than I am with the joy of the resurrection. Not surprisingly, at this time every year I’m less jubila
It appears as though the keepers of the world’s oil supply have decided to give us a break after all. Meeting in Vienna, the assembled princes (I didn’t notice any princesses) of petrol announced that they will increase production just as American motorists are beginning to dream of summ
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
Of all the commentary about George W. Bush and his now-famous appearance at Bob Jones University, the most interesting came from Bishop Thomas V. Dailey of Brooklyn. Speaking to the press, the bishop expressed measured concernbut not about the topic at hand. He was not so much concerned about the Te