Features
In tough straits: Can the ecumenical logjam be broken?
The ecumenical path has always been narrow, but recent events cast a new light on the limited and shifting range of ecumenical possibilities. With the exception of the success of the rapprochement of Luth eran, Reformed and United churches in Europe, intra-Protestant ecumenism seems to be dead in the water.
Smarter foreign aid: How to fix USAID
A Serious Man
It’s 1967 in Minnesota, and life is getting more and more difficult for physics professor Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg). Despite his best efforts to be a good man, a respected member of his Jewish community, a bona fide mensch, the structure of his life is collapsing like the walls of Jericho.
Voices
Philip Jenkins
Muslims go Dutch: While churches thrive
For many American Christians, the religious experience of modern Western Europe offers a dire warning. European church membership has been in free fall for a generation. Each new survey shows ever-growing numbers willing to proclaim themselves totally nonreligious. Meanwhile, burgeoning Muslim populations lead some observers to warn grimly of a coming Eurabia, a continent dominated by the most reactionary forms of Islamic fun damentalism. While native Christian populations have extraordinarily low fertility rates, immigrant Muslims continue to raise large families.
Herbert O’Driscoll
Shaken: To serve in an age of earthquake
A few weeks ago as I came out of the local Cineplex, my eye was caught by a large display proclaiming the thrills and wonder of the movie 2012.
According to an ancient Mayan story, 2012 is the year when the earth is to encounter some extremely unpleasant stuff, perhaps even its own demise. At least that is the simplistic meaning being adopted for Hollywood’s purposes, and it makes for wonderful disaster movie material. Above me on the display, a city was being lifted into the air while at the same time being broken into vast separate pieces.
Books
The Pontificate of Benedict XVI: Its Premises and Promises
Literary Genius: 25 Classic Writers Who Define English and American Literature
BookMarks
Intrepid twins
Sense of the Faithful: How American Catholics Live Their Faith
Still hungry
When I was in southern Ethiopia in 1994, I watched truck after truck roll into a community with food aid. I asked a farmer if the harvest had been bad. He told me he had an abundant harvest of tomatoes and onions—cash crops. Because of all the food aid they were receiving, he could use his land to make some extra cash—and his family would eat wheat from America. That same year I could purchase corn oil at the local grocery store—in big metal containers labeled "A gift from the people of America." I resented having to pay for what was clearly intended to be food aid.
Ways of being Catholic
Departments
Another kind of surge: 30,000 Greg Mortensons
Muslims go Dutch: While churches thrive
Shaken: To serve in an age of earthquake
Compelling characters: Zechariah's story
News
Critics vow to overturn Swiss minaret ban: Surprise and dismay
Century Marks: “Genius . . . sometimes consists of knowing when to stop.” —Columnist George Will, citing a Charles de Gaulle maxim in making a case forthe U.S. to withdraw from Afghanistan
“I take the ones I can afford and then trust in the Lord.”
—Robert Brown, 60, from North Carolina, who has heart disease and emphysema, on coping with the rising cost of prescription drugs