The battle over President George W. Bush’s faith-based initiative—his plan to increase government support for church- and community-run social services—opened on a second front this spring, when political and religious heavyweights on the right began to unload some potent criticism on the newly assembled team of experts who came from far and wide to lay … Read more
It all started in 1978. Louise Brown, the world’s first baby conceived in a scientific laboratory, was born that year to her thrilled, otherwise infertile parents in Oldham, England. She was the offspring, so to speak, of ten-plus painstaking years of similar attempts by a Cambridge University scientist named Robert Edwards, who sought to bring … Read more
As an estimated 70,000 gay-rights advocates gathered in Rome this July for World Pride 2000, some 10,000 Episcopalians thronged Denver, Colorado, to attempt to sort out, among other things, the church’s mind on same-sex unions. The other things addressed by the Episcopal Church U.S.A. (ECUSA) at its 73rd triennial General Convention included a full communion … Read more
While pundits and commentators either commend or decry the political “Southernization” of the rest of the country, one wonders if theologians, priests, and churchgoers might some day remark the “Catholicization” of the South. Most Southern clergy will tell you it’s not likely. Still, in the New South capital of Atlanta, some interesting trends are afoot. … Read more
Over the last fifteen years, the gambling industry’s image has gone from sleazy to slick. Once a pastime that had us conjuring up visions of cigar-toting, gold-chain-wearing, pot-bellied mobsters, gambling is now something we can associate with trim, tanned, Wall Street family men. Even GOP presidential nominee Bob Dole seems convinced that today’s legal gambling … Read more
With the court battle over the constitutionality of Milwaukee’s school choice program now under way, parents, educators, and legislators across the country are gearing up for an outcome that could determine the direction of education reform in America. Though some believe that Wisconsin’s choice program, which allows religious schools to accept tax-funded vouchers from low-income … Read more
When the first Jesuits arrived in Philadelphia in 1733, they purchased a plot of land a few blocks from the old city center in order to construct the city’s first Catholic church. The climate for Catholics was not exactly hospitable at the time—a Father Greaton reportedly wore Quaker garb in order to avoid stirring up … Read more
Since the early eighties, Bill and Mary Agee have experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, all in the public eye. At thirty-nine, Bill, who is from Boise, Idaho, became the youngest CEO of a Fortune 100 company in American history when he assumed the position at Bendix Corporation in 1976. Mary Elizabeth … Read more
Olympic officials in Atlanta could learn a thing or two from tiny Conyers, Georgia. Throngs of people have ventured to the historic antebellum town and its environs over the past five years. And not in fits and starts either. Rockdale County, not quite a two-hour drive from Flannery O’Connor’s Milledgeville and home to the world’s … Read more