Dear President Clinton, It is with deep sorrow and dismay that we respond to your April 10 veto of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. Your veto of this bill is beyond comprehension for those who hold human life sacred. It will ensure the continued use of the most heinous act to kill a tiny infant … Read more
Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Nebraska, has issued a formal canonical warning, effective April 15, to Catholics in his diocese who, on pain of excommunication, are forbidden to be members of certain groups that are “perilous” to the Catholic faith. Catholics loyal to the Church and its Magisterium welcomed the news of this statement with … Read more
Our prayers go out to Crisis cofounder Ralph Mclnerny, who recently underwent successful heart bypass surgery. We look forward to his full recovery and his return to the back page of Crisis. ___ In an 8-3 decision, a San Fran-cisco-based federal appeals court ruled that the Constitution protects a “right to die.” The court struck … Read more
In a November 22, 1995, editorial in the Wall Street Journal, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. joined his voice to the chorus of pundits who fear the political actions of the religiously minded. Predicting that the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin was indicative of things to come, Schlesinger wrote: “More than a third of American adults claim that … Read more
National Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland has announced plans to take a sabbatical in the first six months of 1996. One of the concerns he intends to reflect on is the divisiveness he sees in the Church today and the incivility occurring in much of the discussion. The point is well taken. Incivility to the point … Read more
Sex & Love: What’s a Teenager to Do? Narrated by Mary Beth Bonacci 60 min/color Gateway Films/Vision Video, 1995 Distributed by Gateway Films, $20 A very engaging lecture to college students by Mary Beth Bonacci on the difficult subjects of sex, love, and chastity. Imagine someone who combines the gifts of a stand-up comic with … Read more
The penultimate volume of Julian Green’s four-part autobiography, anglicized as Love In America, borrows its haunting epigraph from Francois Villon, “In my own country I am in a distant land.” Certainly, no writer’s personal situation was ever more appropriately limned by this striking verse than that of Julian Green. Born ninety-five years ago in Belle … Read more
On November 20, the Congregation for the Sacred Doctrine of the Faith declared that Sacerdatio ordinatio, restricting priestly ordination to men, represents a confirmation of the infallible teaching of the ordinary magisterium. The meager coverage afforded by the secular media has been at once shrill and unsure. Crisis asked our contributing editors for their brief, … Read more
In past years Crisis has asked some of its readers for their views on neglected Catholic classics, new and old. This year we simply asked what people were reading that they would recommend — the responses were varied and interesting. Heather Higgins The challenge of any such list is not just recalling what books one … Read more
Continuing interest in James Q. Wilson’s The Moral Sense prompted Crisis to invite three leading Catholic scholars to comment. Wilson’s defense of Aristotelian virtue using the empirical methods of the social sciences has provoked widely varied responses. We asked each to evaluate Wilson’s contribution in the light of the Catholic moral tradition.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Christopher Wolfe-Marquette … Read more
Crisis caught up with Paul Johnson on his recent visit to the United States. In this wide ranging and candid interview, the prolific British writer speaks about a coming renewal of Catholicism, his own spiritual journey, his forthcoming book on America, and democratic capitalism. Mr. Johnson also reveals his penchant for writing poetry and painting … Read more
WARNING: This article features content of an explicit nature. The following editorial was published by the Washington Times on May 13 (reprinted by permission). When I was a girl in Catholic school,” one middle-aged lady recently told this page, “ejaculations were short prayers we were supposed to say if we had an impure thought; kids … Read more
The Catholic Campaign for America Forges Ahead By Thomas Patrick Melady The Catholic Campaign for America (CCA) was conceived because there is a cultural, spiritual, and moral crisis in America that Catholics are uniquely positioned to do something about. Several Catholic leaders rallied to support the initiative, and a Board of Directors, consisting of William … Read more
On March 21, 1994, Washington Archbishop James Cardinal Hickey sent the following letter to President Clinton My dear Mr. President, I must take strong exception to the recent remarks of the Surgeon General, Joycelyn Elders, advocating homosexual behavior and expressing support for adoption by so-called homosexual couples. Furthermore, I deeply regret her apparent intolerance of … Read more
Lithuania Looks to the West By Thomas Patrick Melady For the second time in modern history, Lithuania is a free and independent state. In the early days of Lithuanian history, in the fifteenth century, the country’s boundaries extended from present-day Sweden to the Ukraine. The glorious days of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania eventually were … Read more
Vatican-Israeli Link: How the U.S. Helped By Thomas Patrick Melady Several days before the announcement on December 30, 1993, that the Holy See and the State of Israel would establish diplomatic relations, a friend phoned me from the Vatican to say that this significant even would occur. My wife and I, in Lithuania at that … Read more
Editor’s note: On February 3, Mother Teresa addressed the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. Among the 4,000 people present were President and Mrs. Clinton, Vice President and Mrs. Gore, and numerous other officials. On the last day, Jesus will say to those on His right hand, “Come, enter the kingdom. For I was hungry … Read more
Reflections on the Israeli-Vatican Agreement On the night of the signing of the Vatican-Israel agreement last month, I got a call from my good friend, Saint Petersburg Bishop John Favalora, to share with his good friend, “Rabbi Jacob” (as he calls me), his joy at what he and I both saw as the day that … Read more
A Priest—A Man—to Imitate By William Simon You can almost see the sun shine through the gleam in his eyes. His hand brings the touch of warmth and kindness. And his words are medicine of healing and hope. He is Father Maurice Chase of Los Angeles, and to spend five minutes in his presence is … Read more
The ACLU’s Double Standard Last fall the Supreme Court made a decision to relax the standards of evidence required in sexual harassment cases. The ruling, Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., was not only unanimously decided, it engendered almost no hostility from any political camp. The sentiment among liberals was particularly sympathetic. Praise came from leaders … Read more