When Being Right Means Doing Wrong

by Erick Rommel PART OF BEING a parent involves responsibility. That means protecting and providing for a child. But as children grow, parents must help them transition from a person who is provided for into a person who can provide for herself, a person responsible enough to do the right thing. A great lesson illustrating […]

Hemrick

The Damaging Effects of Alcohol and Drugs

by Father Eugene F. Hemrick Should we turn our heads away, call the police or shut it down? These questions were posed in an article about Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, who was photographed in a house full of young people attending a wild drinking party. Undoubtedly, excessive drinking is one of the greatest […]

‘Pilgrimage’ Offers Rome at Home

by George Weigel In the middle centuries of the first millennium, the Bishop of Rome celebrated the Eucharist with his people during Lent in a striking way. Each day, the pope would lead a procession of Roman clergy and laity from one church – the collecta, or gathering point – to another, the statio or […]

Special Graces When Close Friends Die

by Carol Powell The obituaries of Father James DiGiacomo and Regina Barry appeared in the same issue of The Tablet (Sept. 28). Both of them were personal friends of my family and me for many years. My husband, David, first met Father DiGiacomo when he was a high school Latin student in Brooklyn Prep. Father […]

The Church: Purified By Persecution

by George Weigel Each issue of the admirable ecumenical journal, Touchstone, includes a department called “The Suffering Church.” It’s a title that Catholics of a certain age associate with purgatory; in Touchstone’s vocabulary, however, “the Church suffering” is the Church being purified here and now by persecution. It’s a useful reminder of a hard fact. […]

Too Many Bullies in the World; Don’t Be One of Them

by Karen Dietlein Osborne Let’s be clear: People are not things. In general, things are to be used. You use a fork to eat. You use a cellphone to call your mother. You use a bus to get from Point A to Point B. Everyone uses things – computers, cars, restaurants, shoes. And I think […]

Looking Back over 50 Years

by Stephen Kent Ten U.S. presidents, six popes and several wars have come, and some gone, since we first met. Our most recent gathering marked the 50th anniversary of our graduation from what had been a small, all-male Jesuit university. There were the introductory social events at which we, from under balding heads and behind […]

Children as Commodities

by George Weigel The Council of the District of Columbia is considering a bill, sponsored by its most aggressively activist gay member, to legalize surrogate child-bearing in your nation’s capital. Infertility is a heart-rending problem. But solving that problem is not what’s at issue here, for the D.C. surrogacy bill is being pushed by the […]

Carolyn Woo

Business Is a Necessary Good, Not a Necessary Evil

by Carolyn Woo Given my work in business education and particularly my last role as the dean of the business school in a Catholic university, I am often asked whether work in the business sector can be a vocation. The answer is simply, “Of course!” Business is a necessary good, not a necessary evil. As […]

Fender Bender Leads to Bumper Crop for Business

by Father William J. Byron, S.J. The expression “bumper-to-bumper” is often used to describe a traffic tie-up, a slow-moving stream of cars on a beltway or highway. Sometimes the expression is used to describe automobile repair services that can take care of any problem between the front and back bumpers of any car. Recently, my […]