By
Leo O'Donovan
Duccio's 'Maesta' is both painting and prayer.
Full story
By
Eileen Markey
Every week, we bump into God at a crowded table with friends.
Full story
By
Renée LaReau
For many people, Christmastime is a festive, frenzied blur of shopping,
baking and merrymaking. But for just as many others, the holiday season can be
a lonely, empty time, a time when loss, grief and loneliness come into sharp
relief.
Full story
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Christmas -- Bob McCahill letter |
“Anywhere you choose to settle, just let me know,” Bishop
Bejoy [Nocephorus D’Cruze] assured me when welcoming me to Khulna
diocese. I investigated six of the 13 districts within the diocese. In every
place, I sought to learn whether or not Christians of any denomination reside
there.
Full story
A ministry of friendship and dialogue
By
Erin Ryan
For many years Maryknoll Fr. Bob McCahill has been sending an annual
letter to NCR and other friends at Christmastime, chronicling his
experience living among the people of Bangladesh since 1975.
Full story
Missionary builds trust, aids sick children
By
Sue Schulzetenberg
For 32 years, Maryknoll Fr. Bob McCahill has lived among the poor in
Bangladesh, riding his bike through the streets and helping the sick to get the
care they need. The 69-year-old priest, who has been called “the Mother Teresa of
Maryknoll,” encourages families to seek medical treatment for their sick
children and often accompanies them to hospitals to make sure their children
are admitted.
Full story
By
John L. Allen Jr.
A spiritual meditation, encyclical touches on vintage papal
themes.
Full story
Mission stations in Seoul serve working Catholics
By
UCA News
Tucked among towering skyscrapers and shopping malls in
downtown Seoul, inside police stations, corporate offices and hospitals, urban
mission stations quietly serve busy Catholics in or near their workplaces.
Full story
U.S. bishops fault Phan for 'considerable confusion'
By
John L. Allen Jr.
Faulting Asian-American theologian Fr. Peter Phan for creating
“considerable confusion” about Catholic teaching regarding Christ,
the church and other religions, the Committee on Doctrine of the U.S.
bishops’ conference released a 15-page statement Dec. 10 on Phan’s
2004 book Being Religious Interreligously.
Full story
Colorado shootings reflect big threats to big churches
By
Religion News Service
With megachurches come mega crowds, mega money, and increasingly, mega
security concerns. The crowds -- anywhere from 2,000 to 20,000 worshipers each weekend --
can be an attractive target for a deranged shooter. Overflowing offering plates
are tempting to thieves, and well-known preachers can become high-profile
targets.
Full story
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Torture, and who we say we are
What better evidence do we need than our current debate over torture to
demonstrate the disjuncture between our view of ourselves as a moral nation and
the face we present to others.
Full editorial
“I did it as a tribute to Galileo Galilei, who received a
similar [three-year] sentence from the Catholic church for saying the earth
rotates around the sun.”
-- Manuel Pérez, a judge in southern Chile, who sentenced Fr.
José Cornejo to recite seven psalms daily for three months as punishment
for illegal parking
More quotes
A nation without a state
Inconsistency and double-dealing mark U.S. policy toward the
Kurds.
Full story
Art and 'the one true myth'
By
Dick Staub
Werner Herzog's ecstatic vision speaks to the truth of
Christmas.
Full story
St Macrina, the younger
By
Erin Ryan
St. Macrina -- monastic founder, miracle worker and philosopher -- was
born about two years after the Council of Nicaea in 325, the eldest of 10
children in a well-off Christian family in Cappadocia. Along with Macrina, this
family living in a region now part of Turkey produced an extraordinary number
of saints: the girl’s maternal grandmother, for whom she was named; her
parents; and three of her brothers, all bishops -- Peter of Sabaste and
Cappadocian Fathers Gregory of Nyssa and Basil of Caesaraea.
Full story
By
Raymond A. Schroth
The television screen focuses on a storefront marked “Hillary”
as a SWAT team, poised for action, huddles a few yards away. A flock of birds
swoops across the screen. Inside Hillary Clinton’s Rochester, N.H.,
headquarters, a man with what he said was a bomb strapped around his waist
terrorizes four (or was it five? or three?) young hostages and demands to speak
to Sen. Clinton.
Full story
Episcopal split was long time coming
By
Daniel Burke
Bishop John-David Schofield of San Joaquin, Calif., struck an urgent
tone on Dec. 8 when he urged his Fresno-based diocese to defect from the
Episcopal church. “God’s timing is essential,” he said before the decisive
vote to cut ties with the American church and align with the Argentina-based
Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. “Delayed obedience in scripture is
seen as disobedience when opportunities and blessings are lost.”
Full story
Blackwater protesters convicted
By
Patrick O'Neill
Seven people were convicted Dec. 5 in North Carolina District Court for
trespass stemming from an Oct. 20 demonstration at the headquarters of
Blackwater Worldwide in Moyock, N.C.
Full story |
FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK
Remembering Christmas
As humans, we have an amazing propensity for arranging our lives in
cycles. Birthdays, anniversaries and holidays are just some of the events that
come around every year. The bigger the occasion, the greater the likelihood we
will commemorate it 25, 50 or 100 years from now. We find it meaningful to
remember events of great significance. They cause us to rethink our humanity.
Such events include major wars, natural disasters and the births and deaths of
prominent people.
Full story
By
Michael True
“My subject is war -- and the immorality of war.” Gordon Zahn wrote that, with acknowledgement that he was paraphrasing
“the great war poet Wilfred Owen,” in the forward to a 1967 book,
War, Conscience and Dissent.
Full story
By
Thomas C. Fox
Fr. Edward Hays encourages holy fools and Mad Hatters.
Full story
By
Retta Blaney
Jean Langlais lost his sight at age 3 and experienced the trauma of the
occupation of Paris during World War II. These elements had a profound
influence on him. They shaped Mr. Langlais, a devout Catholic, into one of the
foremost composers of sacred music in the 20th century.
Full story
The dark side of American generosity
Reviewed by
Ben Terrall
Full story
Poetry December 21, 2007
Letters for December 21, 2007
Classifieds for December 21, 2007
News Briefs for December 21, 2007
People for December 21, 2007
Last Words
A memorable quote from this
week's issue.
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