Since the terrorist mass-murder attacks of 9/11, we have seen a growing debate over the use of torture. The famous civil liberties and defense attorney Alan Dershowitz, in Why Terrorism Works, wrote a full chapter to justify the use of an authorized torture warrant under highly controlled conditions

We might think the battle for Christmas is over words. But the struggle is waged at a far deeper level of our lives.

Is it a comedy or a tragedy? Or is it a farce? Although for the most part the antipathies between the hard-line Democrats and Republicans have become laughably sad, sometimes it just looks like a silly joke. The most recent stage for them to strut on, working out their private scenarios, has been th

I have often wondered about the long-range value of writing, whether books or articles. It is certainly true that some novels and non-fiction works have shaped my own life, as I was recently reminded when a community of graduate students and professors traded the titles of books that were transforma

The novelist Richard Ford, in an opinion piece in The New York Times on Sept. 4, ruminating on the devastation of his home town, called New Orleans a city beyond the reach of empathy. For a while it looked that way. On Aug. 25, 2005, the people of New Orleans were told to evacuate their city. If the

I received a thoughtful e-mail message recently from a late 1980’s graduate of a Jesuit university. He is strongly pro-life, armed with 27 hours of philosophy and theology requirements to boot, and is at loggerheads with some pro-choice friends who hold the position that there is a distinction

I write on a hot summer day in Saint Louis. The newspaper notes that Communist China, the great new rising capitalist and consumer society, has made a bid to buy a mid-level American oil company for $1.5 billion more than offered by Chevron. The networks announce that crude oil has reached $60 a bar

It should come as no surprise to readers of this column that I find President Bush profoundly deficient in implementing his culture of life theme. Sometimes, when I fail in charity and am tempted to judge his character, I even suspect it a cynical move to use an expression famously invoked by Pope J

As May 2005 approached, the country noted a painful anniversary. In the spring of 1975 Saigon fell to the Viet Cong. The images still horrify. The memory remains too sad. Any healing thoughts are of the Vietnamese peoplethe millions killed and maimed but grieved, those who were on our side and were

For so many people, John Paul II was a moral magnet, even in death. A commentator on PBS called him a pope for all seasons. One could understand why. The whole world could watch massive lines of people, 35 across, snaking through the streets of Rome. Eighteen thousand an hour, two million in all, wa