At the Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola on Park Avenue in Manhattan between mid-summer of 1896 and June of the following year the seven Jesuit priests who resided there heard nearly 80 000 confessions all but 2 000 of them particular - that is listing the penitents rsquo sins since their last con

You have to warm to a man who spent the night reading The Old Man and the Sea after he received word that he was to be made a bishop The account of the future John Paul II reading Hemingway on a train as he returned after being informed that he was to be made a bishop to a group of young people wi

Archaeological digs in the land of Israel often shed light on the Jewish and Christian Bibles and on the persons and events that occupy their pages Sometimes the discoveries make us rethink long-held ideas One need recall only the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls for example which is helping us

Upon John Gregory Dunne rsquo s death of a heart attack in December 2003 the many obituaries and eulogies for this famous man of letters stressed the deft touch Dunne brought as a writer to those subjects he knew well the Irish-American experience the chaotic and morally bankrupt culture of Holly

One finds in theological circles frequent appeal to the ldquo sacramental imagination rdquo as a distinguishing trait of Catholicism Like all truths when unimaginatively intoned it quickly becomes platitudinous The Rev M Owen Lee rsquo s finely crafted and deeply moving memoir never invokes t

The ultra right may have the loudest talking heads these days Limbaugh O rsquo Reilly Hannity etc but the left has cornered the market on stylish witty substantial writers Lewis Lapham Frank Rich Maureen Dowd Hendrik Hertzberg and others None of the leftist gang are likely to become