Broken trust is like a shattered coffee mug: You can glue the pieces back together, but it’s never going to look like it used to and may even leak.
Guest Columnists
Remembering The Few
SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, on Sunday, Sept. 15, 1940, Winston Churchill and his wife Clementine were driven from the prime minister’s country house, Chequers, to the nearby village of Uxbridge: a Royal Air Force (RAF) station and the headquarters from which Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park was directing the RAF’s No. 11 Group against the onslaught of the German Luftwaffe in southern England. When the prime minister and his wife walked into No. 11 Group’s Operations Room, Park, a doughty New Zealander who flew his own personal Hurricane fighter, said, “I don’t know whether anything will happen today. At present, all is quiet.”
Emotional ‘War Room’ Focuses on Family
Prayer becomes the ultimate weapon to save a young family in crisis in “War Room” (TriStar). This Christian-themed drama is the latest offering from Alex and Stephen Kendrick, the fraternal team behind 2008’s “Fireproof” and 2011’s “Courageous.”
Faith Sustains Former President
NEWS IN AUGUST that President Jimmy Carter’s cancer had spread from his liver to his brain brought sadness to many in America and around the world, but his assurance that he will be “at ease with whatever comes” came as no surprise to those who have followed the 39th president of the United States over the years.
Rewriting the Script in Roanoke and at Home
THE QUESTION THAT haunts the aftermath of tragedies resulting in death and heartbreak is often the same: Could any of us have seen it coming and stopped it? The news was indeed horrific the morning of Wednesday, Aug. 26 when two Roanoke, Virginia, journalists in their 20s with promising careers and marriages to look forward to were gunned down during a live broadcast.
The Issue Beneath the Issue at the Synod
A brilliant article by a German Catholic philosopher, Professor Thomas Stark, suggests that an argument beneath the argument may be afoot in the controversies that will be aired at the Synod of Bishops in October.
Now Is the Time for All-in Catholicism
AT CHRISTMAS 1969, Professor Joseph Ratzinger gave a radio talk with the provocative title, “What Will the Future Church Look Like?” (You can find it in “Faith and the Future,” published by Ignatius Press). One of the concluding paragraphs was destined to become perhaps the most quoted excerpt from his extensive bibliography, when Professor Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI:
Using Technology to Humanize Unborn Life
Ultrasound technology was in its early days when my wife and I were having children. I couldn’t tell top from bottom. The doctors could, though. It became possible for the first time to tell the sex of the baby before it was born.
Spiritual Stroll Through the Cemetery
This summer, my husband and I did something we didn’t do when we lived in Alaska – we took road trips throughout 48 states. And in some of those places we visited cemeteries. On this summer’s trip, since we both love Abraham Lincoln, we stopped at the Gettysburg battlefield – and the cemetery where Lincoln delivered his famous address.
Examining Our Aspirations
WHILE READING a United Nations Development Program report on violence in Latin America, I encountered the term “aspirational crimes,” used to explain the tragic acceleration in crimes on and by young people. The term refers to crimes motivated by money and the irresistible desire for consumption. Partly this is to support one’s family in situations where poverty is intolerable. But a large part is for the “cool” gadgets, shoes, clothes, electronics, etc., that swell a young man’s swagger and elevate his position within a gang, mark his achievement and anesthetize his misery for the moment.