Bishop to Knight? -- Checkmate or Camelot?
- November/December 2004
- November 1, 2004
Eugene Kennedy recalls the New York parish of his childhood, a place where men well-known as gangland bosses walked the streets. Not once, said the man who would grow up to become a priest and confidant to the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, does he remember his church denying those murderous thugs Communion. So
READ MOREIn Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift wrote about the long war between "the two great empires of Lilliput and Blefuscu" over which end of an egg should be broken, the big or the little one. According to earliest historical accounts, when the grandfather of Lilliput's present king broke open an egg in the traditional manner, that
READ MOREAs we drove through the Iraqi countryside, I sat in the backseat of the SUV looking out the window in amazement at the pastoral scenes passing before me. With my teammates, Otto and Deanna, I had just crossed from the Turkish border into what is known as the Kurdistan area of Iraq. We were a
READ MOREIn 2003 the soon-to-be-terminated governor of California, Gray Davis, was warned by his local bishop that the governor's boast of making California "the most pro-choice state in America" threatened his standing in the Catholic Church. When Davis was told by Sacramento bishop William K. Weigand either to change his views or to stop receiving Communion,
READ MOREThe Evangelical church in America is in real danger today. As if the effort to save people's souls weren't enough to deal with, today's church must also grapple with sex scandals, skyrocketing divorce rates, debates over gay marriage, and a nation in the midst of what seems to be an escalating religious war. Sensing the
READ MOREHenry David Thoreau once remarked on the "great flapping ear" of the American public wanting to know everything about everything. And, in spite of the elephantine imagery he seemed to use, the contemporary curiosity crosses all party lines. Yet, at times that curiosity, while insatiable, is a little like an internet search engine let loose
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