National Catholic Reporter back issues from June 2006:
Do helping hands in Appalachia do more harm than good?(beliefs of Christian Appalachian project volunteer)(Cover story)
Jun 02, 2006; ... My husband, Frank, and I have just spent a year trying to serve the poor of Appalachia, well known as one of the less advantaged parts of this country. We came about this work from the outside in. About 10 years ago, we spent two years working with the poor in Mexico. During that time, ...
Deciphering the 'Da Vinci Code': the movie version of Dan Brown's book is entertaining if unimaginative.(MOVIES)(Movie review)
Jun 02, 2006; ... The Da Vinci Code has finally appeared. (Previews for reviewers and critics weren't available until the day before its May 19 release, making it impossible to meet NCR deadlines, for an earlier issue.) Because the book is so well-known, its faithfulness to the main storyline cannot help ...
Movies that caused an uproar.(MOVIES)(The King of Kings)(The Sign of the Cross)(Mohammed, Messenger of God)(Monty Python's Life of Brian)(The Last Temptation of Christ)(Priest)(Dogma)(The Passion of the Christ)(Movie review)
Jun 02, 2006; ... Even films made with the best intentions have run into trouble when tackling spiritual subjects. "The Da Vinci Code" is the latest of many to arouse controversy. Some of the others include: * "The King of Kings" (1927) Cecil B. DeMille's great biblical epic took his ...
Is 'The Da Vinci Code' only a story?(MOVIES)
Jun 02, 2006; ... Suppose you go to London and visit King's Cross Station. Then suppose you search out Platform 9 3/4 so you can take the train to Hogwarts, the boarding school of Harry Potter and all the other aspiring young wizards. Dismayed when you can't find the train, you cry out, "Harry Potter lies!" ...
How the secular culture shapes us.(WORD FROM ROME)(influence of popular culture on the Catholic Church)(Interview)
Jun 02, 2006; ... I sat down May 15 with David Schindler, academic dean at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family in Washington, where he also serves as Edouard Cardinal Gagnon Professor of Fundamental Theology. Since 1982, Dr. Schindler has been editor-in-chief of the North ...
The Da Vinci Code reflects the strength of Christianity.(THE LION'S DEN)
Jun 02, 2006; ... In my working hours, I formally profess both faith and reason, together, in this world, as bedrock. But I have recurring doubts. Any thinking person knows that these two mountainous realities (to mix mineral metaphors) are difficult enough individually. Together, they are almost more than ...
Changing sides on the death penalty: a chaplain reflects on his three years at a state prison.(VIEWPOINT)
Jun 02, 2006; ... When I left the Twin Cities in June 2002 to begin my service as a lay Catholic chaplain in a California maximum security prison housing 5,000 male inmates, I had no idea what to expect other than warmer weather. I certainly didn't expect to find myself changing my position on the death ...
Radcliffe's wisdom.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jun 02, 2006; ... Fr. Timothy Radcliffe speaks volumes to all Catholics--if. The "if" depends on each of us: Are we willing to go deeper, be more open and honest in digesting the views we have up to now dismissed as wrong, treated as threats to the truth and our well-being as members of the community of ...
Diocesan shift.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jun 02, 2006; ... Please accept my profound gratitude for the issue with the article about Bishop Robert Finn (NCR, May 12). Many of us in the Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., diocese are suffering greatly. Finn obviously believes we aren't real Catholics and that our three previous bishops weren't either. We ...
The Syrian welcome wagon.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jun 02, 2006; ... I very much appreciated your articles on the couple in Damascus (NCR, April 7). As you can tell by the last name, I am Theresa's sister. I was privileged to be able to visit Theresa and Gabe from April 20 to May 2. It was a wonderful trip. So many sites of historical and ...
A girl's dreams.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jun 02, 2006; ... I've been a fan of Fr. James Behrens' writing in NCR for years, going all the way back to the pieces he wrote when he still lived in New Jersey, before entering the monastery. I've always found his reflections thoughtful and meaningful. But I must take issue with one aspect of his Starting ...
Condom permission.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jun 02, 2006; ... Regarding the article "Vatican draft document would approve condoms for married couples with AIDS" by John L. Allen Jr. (NCR, May 5): The Catholic church's prohibition against contraception is irreversible despite Cardinal Carlo Martini's recent claim that condoms are the lesser evil in ...
Chaput's case: correct but not sufficient.(Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput's views on sexual abuse cases)(Editorial)
Jun 02, 2006 ... Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput is correct. It is inherently unfair, and bad public policy, when governments exempt themselves from lawsuits of a kind that can bankrupt their private counterparts engaged in exactly the same behavior. In Colorado, the issue arose over a piece of ...
The McCarrick mystique.(PERSPECTIVES)(Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick)(Biography)
Jun 02, 2006; ... There's a reason why they call him Uncle Ted. Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who officially entered retirement May 16, is a rare bird among America's Catholic bishops and, sadly, one of a dying breed. Many things would make a man like McCarrick stand out--his ...
The struggle for balance.(EDITOR'S NOTE)(issue contents )(Editorial)
Jun 16, 2006; ... Tom Lorsung is well known in Catholic journalism circles as the longtime director and editor in chief of Catholic News Service in Washington, a post from which he retired in 2003. Less well-known is his skill with a camera. About 10 years ago, he and his wife purchased a second ...
On the ball.(IN THE BEGINNING)(photo caption)(Brief article)
Jun 16, 2006 ... Ecuadorean players Patricio Urrutia and Paul Ambrosi battle for a ball during a 2006 World Cup training session. Thirty-two teams and millions of fans from across the globe were expected to descend on Germany when the international soccer tournament opened June 9. The German Catholic ...
Governor seeks stem cell funds.(U.S. BRIEFS)(Jim Doyle of Wisconsin)(Brief article)
Jun 16, 2006 ... MADISON, Wis. -- At the end of April, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, a Catholic, announced that the state would invest $5 million to recruit companies in the stem cell industry to the state. Doyle's goal is for Wisconsin to possess at least 10 percent of the market by 2015. In ...
Priest regrets sin comment.(U.S. BRIEFS)(Martin Tran's comments on kneeling during Agnus Dei)(Brief article)
Jun 16, 2006 ... ORANGE, Calif. -- A California Catholic priest who implied that kneeling during the Agnus Dei in Mass is a "mortal sin," expressed regret for "mis-use of the term" this week. At least 55 elderly parishioners at the Orange County, Calif., church where Fr. Martin Tran is pastor ...
'Father Crunk' preaches on popular Atlanta radio show.(IN THE BEGINNING)(Father Ricardo Bailey on Q100)
Jun 16, 2006 ... ATLANTA -- It's 6:30 a.m. the Monday after Easter, and Fr. Ricardo Bailey looks over his sermon notes one last time. As a parochial vicar at Holy Spirit Parish, his Easter weekend was busy. He tries to shake off fatigue. But as soon as he walks into his "pulpit," the youthful energy he is ...
Quotable & notable.(IN THE BEGINNING)(Quotation)(Brief article)
Jun 16, 2006 ... "We had constructive talks." --Ali Larijani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator after meeting with Javier Solaria, the European Union foreign policy chief, about the six-nation proposal that aims at getting Iran to freeze its uranium enrichment and reprocessing program ...
Marriage support gets funds.(U.S. BRIEFS)(President Bush's Healthy Marriage Initiative)(Brief article)
Jun 16, 2006 ... WASHINGTON -- Catholic and Protestant leaders praised the Bush administration for making $100 million in new funds available to programs that strengthen marriage in America. After four years of rejecting President Bush's Healthy Marriage Initiative, Congress passed the proposal May 16. ...
Peace zone proposed.(WORLD BRIEFS)(violence in Mannar in Sri Lanka)(Brief article)
Jun 16, 2006 ... COLOMBO, Sri Lanka -- Bishop Rayappu Joseph of Mannar says he has asked Sri Lanka's president to declare his diocese a "zone of peace" and has made a similar request to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, who began an armed revolt in 1983. A cease-fire had been in effect the better part ...
Amnesty mulls abortion policy.(WORLD BRIEFS)(Amnesty International)(Brief article)
Jun 16, 2006 ... LONDON -- Human rights watchdog Amnesty International is a step closer to adopting a policy in favor of abortion after its Canadian section voted at its May 26-28 annual meeting to abandon its neutral position on the issue. A Canadian delegation is to present the section's views ...
AIDS paper praised, panned.(WORLD BRIEFS)(United Nations meeting on AIDS)(Brief article)
Jun 16, 2006 ... UNITED NATIONS -- A three-day United Nations meeting on the global AIDS pandemic ended with a declaration that some diplomats praised as a landmark but that AIDS activists called a failure. The statement, on the 25th anniversary of the deadly epidemic, acknowledges "both the ...
Starting point.(IN THE BEGINNING)(hope in the form of sprouting seeds)(Brief article)(Column)
Jun 16, 2006; ... I never expected to be saved from heartache by a Quaker Oats box, even that tall, round kind! And if I had, certainly not on that Friday, a day I thought nothing could rescue. I had just counseled an abused woman and was feeling sad about her pain. Then a colleague told me that ...
Florence Carnaggio.(PEOPLE)(receives high school diploma)(Brief article)
Jun 16, 2006 ... Seated in a wheelchair, wearing a cap and gown, 102-year-old Florence Carnaggio smiled shyly after receiving her diploma from Principal Curtis Turner of Seton Keough High School in Baltimore. The graduation ceremony was more than 80 years in the making. In eighth grade, ...
Rosa Murillo.(PEOPLE)(collects aluminum cans and donates money raised)(Brief article)
Jun 16, 2006 ... As Rosa Murillo pulls her cart with her collection of aluminum cans through the neighborhoods of Troy, N.Y., many of the locals think she is homeless. What they don't realize is all the money Murillo, 89, collects from ...
F. Joseph Gossman.(PEOPLE)(North Carolina Council of Churches lobbies assembly for minimum wage rise)(Brief article)
Jun 16, 2006 ... The North Carolina Council of Churches has asked the state General Assembly to raise the minimum wage. In a letter to the assembly signed by 29 Christian leaders, including Raleigh Bishop F. Joseph Gossman, the council called the current $5.15-an-hour minimum wage "immoral" because it is ...
Solve crisis of uninsured, advocates urge.(NATION)(American Catholics advised to help solve problem of medically uninsured persons)
Jun 16, 2006; ... A leading health care advocate urged Catholic leaders June 5 to "keep the heat turned up" on the issue of the nation's 46 million uninsured until Congress is convinced that the American public wants it to solve the problem. Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the ...
Overcome 'enemy' view of Iran, says Pax Christi official.(NATION)
Jun 16, 2006; ... Americans have to overcome a negative stereotype of Iran so that they can better assess Bush administration claims that the Muslim nation is planning to build nuclear weapons, said Dave Robinson, executive director of the peace organization Pax Christi USA. "Enemy imaging ...
Mobile consulate aids Mexicans in Illinois.(NATION)(mobile Mexican consulate)
Jun 16, 2006; ... More than 1,000 Mexicans who live in and around two northern Illinois counties lined up over three days to renew passports and obtain government identification cards without leaving the state. A Chicago-based mobile unit of the Mexican Consulate was set up May 25-28 at the University of ...
Debate erupts over honor for Rice: protest at Boston College graduation as secretary of state speaks.(NATION)(honorary degree for Condoleezza Rice)
Jun 16, 2006; ... The applause subsided. The thousands of students and family members, gathered for the May 22 graduation ceremony at the Boston College Alumni Stadium, took their seats. But 100 or more professors clustered to the left of the stage, dressed in ceremonial caps and gowns, stood silently, ...
French priest convicted of sex abuse.(WORLD)(Fr. Pierre Dufour)
Jun 16, 2006; ... "His victims thought that they were knocking on heaven's doors. In fact they were knocking on hell's doors," said French Attorney General Jacqueline Dufournet in a sex abuse trial against Fr. Pierre Dufour. Dufour, 71, a former pastor at St. Jean de Maurienne in French Savoia ...
Indian diplomat heads Vatican evangelization office.(WORLD)(Indian Cardinal Ivan Dias prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples)(Brief article)
Jun 16, 2006 ... Pope Benedict XVI named Italian Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe to be the new archbishop of Naples and named Indian Cardinal Ivan Dias of Mumbai to succeed Sepe as prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. The appointments were announced May 20 at the Vatican. ...
Pope at Auschwitz praised, faulted.(WORLD)(Benedict XVI doesn't speak out on anti-Semitism)
Jun 16, 2006; ... While Pope John Paul II's 1979 visit to Auschwitz, the first ever for a pope, was widely hailed as a watershed, Benedict XVI's May 28 appearance has drawn more mixed reviews. Criticism came mostly for what the pope didn't say--no acknowledgment of Christianity's complicity in the ...
Jimmie Briggs: America's voice for the child soldier.(FEATURE)
Jun 16, 2006; ... For a writer who nearly lost his mind writing about child soldiers, Jimmie Briggs has a kind, unshadowed face more in keeping with a less corrosive line of work. He is 37. Since 1998, Mr. Briggs, an African-American raised in St. Louis, has made 11 visits to five ...
Tony Snow is a man to watch.(COLUMN)(White House press secretary)(Column)
Jun 16, 2006; ... As rare moments in Washington politics go, this one had a reality-based specialness of its own. Tony Snow, the new White House press secretary whose mission is to talk much and say little, was at the briefing room lectern, not talking but saying much. In silence, he choked back tears ....
In the name of security: Israel and the U.S. illustrate the illusion of safety without justice.(COLUMNS)
Jun 16, 2006; ... Both Israel and the United States have become obsessed with security. Every form of oppression of those seen as potentially dangerous is justified by this need for security. In the United States, especially since 9/11, spying on the civilian population, wiretapping without warrants and ...
Congress OKs Israel's expansionist agenda.(COLUMNS)(analysis of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations)(Column)
Jun 16, 2006; ... Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is moving ahead with plans to illegally annex broad swaths of occupied Palestinian territory in the West Bank with the apparent backing of the Bush administration and Congress. The so-called "convergence plan" or "realignment" seeks to ...
With no peace partner, Israel must assure security.(VIEWPOINT)
Jun 16, 2006; ... Israel's decisions to build a security barrier between itself and the Palestinians and to disengage from large areas of land conquered in the Six Day War of 1967 against the Arabs are part of a new and sobering recognition that since the two peoples cannot live together, they are both ...
Nuclear power: promise or peril: it's all that stands between us and environmental disaster.(VIEWPOINT)
Jun 16, 2006; ... Americans should be most grateful that we have a readily available, economical, safe, environmentally friendly source of electrical power from nuclear plants to help avert the global warming that presents such potential disaster for our fragile planet. That's not the usual ...
Nuclear power: promise or peril: failed technology has no part in energy plans of the future.(VIEWPOINT)
Jun 16, 2006; ... On May 26, 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower stood on a podium and flipped a switch that ushered in the nuclear power age. By turning on the Shippingport, Pa., nuclear power reactor, the first commercial atomic reactor in the United States, President Eisenhower made a giant stride ...
Body of bishops.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jun 16, 2006; ... Fr. Richard McBrien needs to get a grip. His remark, "It's the worst body of bishops in the history of the church"--quoted by Gerald Renner in your May 19 issue--is way over the top. Is not Arianism often dubbed the "heresy of the bishops"? How about the extended periods in church history ...
Clergy culture.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jun 16, 2006; ... Michael Newall's cover story about the Philadelphia archdiocese and the accompanying editorial "Examine the clergy culture" draw up once again the agonizing details of hierarchical arrogance at its worst (NCR, April 28). The editorial asks, "How did it come to this?" I ponder the question ....
Church and condoms.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jun 16, 2006; ... Sometimes the church's attempts to undo years of hairsplitting with even more hairsplitting become hilarious. Recent proclamations about the use of condoms by married couples with HIV (NCR, May 5) are a case in point. Since when is HIV the only sexually transmitted disease that puts a ...
Timothy Radcliffe.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jun 16, 2006; ... In "Overcoming discord in the church," Dominican Fr. Timothy Radcliffe says: "The Trinity is the Father speaking the Word, which is the Son, and their shared sending forth of the Spirit. Indeed Christoph Schwobel, ...
Kansas City diocese.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jun 16, 2006; ... Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, welcome to the real world! In the corporate world, a new boss comes in and changes are made, and not all the changes are liked and people move on. I am in no way discounting the trauma to those affected, but I support Bishop Robert Finn's move toward ...
Statute of limitations.(LETTERS)(Letter to the editor)
Jun 16, 2006; ... As the sponsor of the legislation lifting the statute of limitations on sexual abuse of children, I am dismayed that you would mischaracterize what this legislation sought to do (NCR, June 2). First, the bill never sought to exclude public entities. When the archdiocese objected ...
Maciel and the legionaries.(Letter to the editor)
Jun 16, 2006; ... * As one of the victims of the accused criminal Marcial Maciel, I admire your integrity and congratulate your courageous and honest editorial on the Maciel case (NCR, May 26). John Allen knows me personally. I am the one who from October 1976 started to send written information to the ...
Spin without end in abuse scandal.(disputing view of Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights)
Jun 16, 2006 ... The clergy sex abuse crisis--some would have us believe--is largely about priests taking advantage of or being seduced by older teenage boys. In other words, it's a gay thing. That's the view of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, as articulated by the group's ...
The shock fades in Lincoln.(Catholics in Diocese of Lincoln Nebraska protest against bishop)(Editorial)
Jun 16, 2006 ... A small gathering of people showed up outside St. Mary Catholic Church and School in Lincoln, Neb., June 3, demonstrating for more openness and inclusiveness in the Roman Catholic church. The agenda itself might seem like tilting at windmills in the extreme, given other, ...
Making connections.(ECOLOGY)(issue contents)
Jun 16, 2006; ... Hurricane Katrina staged for an international audience the tragic confluence of natural disaster and structural injustice. It may have been fleeting, but for a time Katrina radically altered the popular discussion on race, poverty and the environment in America and beyond. Fury over a ...
From landfills to freeways: movement links ecology, justice.(ECOLOGY)
Jun 16, 2006; ... There's the environment, and then there are justice and human rights. It seems that these realms are separate, the former concerned with wetlands and wilderness while the latter is all about public policies or insuring equal protection under the law. For Robert Bullard, director of the ...
What's at stake.(ECOLOGY)(photo caption)
Jun 16, 2006; ... Above: It was one of the first summers for us at our second home, on the eastern shore of Maryland, when we looked out the window and saw these folks walking through shallow water at sunset, looking for crabs to catch by net and keep in a basket floating in an inner tube. ...
Facts on the Chesapeake Bay and its environment.(ECOLOGY)
Jun 16, 2006; ... Covering 64,000 square miles that encompass parts of Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay is North America's largest and the world's third largest estuary (an area where fresh and salt water mix). On a ...
Preserving sustainable family farms: Catholic group seeks justice for those who do 'the world's work'.(ECOLOGY)(National Catholic Rural Life Conference)
Jun 16, 2006; ... It is no great secret to many living on the American coasts that the breadth and bulk of this nation is known as the "flyover area," angular states to be stared at through airplane glass en route to somewhere else. Far below, on the ground, is where the engine of American agriculture has ...
A lesson in who we are.(EDITOR'S NOTE)
Jun 30, 2006; ... I took some time off recently and when I returned I had a message from a radio station asking if I'd agree to give some suggestions for summer reading. I was too late in getting to the message to make the show, but I was ready with a suggestion: Steven Kinzer's Overthrow: America's Century ...
Correction.(Correction notice)
Jun 30, 2006 ... In the photo caption accompanying the story, "Democrats seek to woo Catholics back to the fold" (NCR, June 16), Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid was identified as a ...
Sign of repentance.(IN THE BEGINNING; clergy sex abuse)(Brief article)
Jun 30, 2006 ... Boston clergy prostrate themselves in the chapel of St. John's Seminary Peterson Hall in Brighton, Mass., June 3. The action was part of a healing pilgrimage and novena sponsored by the Boston archdiocese as a sign of repentance for the clergy sexual abuse crisis. Closing the nine-day ...
No taxes for Bible theme park.(U.S. BRIEFS)(Brief article)
Jun 30, 2006 ... ORLANDO, Florida -- Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law June 16 a bill that grants theme parks that display, exhibit, illustrate and interpret biblical manuscripts the same tax-exempt status as museums. The law is the product of a four-year legal battle involving the Holy Land Experience, a ...
Language tries to explain God.(U.S. BRIEFS; Trinity theology)(Brief article)
Jun 30, 2006 ... BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly accepted June 19 a report--five years in the making--that encourages but does not mandate using alternatives to traditional references to the Trinity. "The language of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, rooted in ...
Contraception access secured.(U.S. BRIEFS)(Brief article)
Jun 30, 2006 ... PORTLAND, Ore. -- Women in Oregon who want emergency contraception pills got more assurance that they'll be able to buy their medication without undue delay or a lecture from a disapproving pharmacist. Oregon law does not require pharmacists who object to dispensing the morning-after pill ...
Pope Benedict appoints new secretary of state.(IN THE BEGINNING)
Jun 30, 2006; ... Pope Benedict XVI has appointed Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone of Genoa, Italy, who worked alongside then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from 1995 to 2003 as secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to be his new secretary of state. The move makes Bertone, 72, the most ...
Quotable & notable.(IN THE BEGINNING)
Jun 30, 2006 ... "The people who are going to be at the brunt end of it are the poor priests in the parishes who don't need any more problems." --Jesuit Fr. Thomas Reese telling The New York Times that new Mass translations approved by U.S. bishops are going to cause chaos in the pews ...
Brothers pull out of schools.(WORLD BRIEFS; Irish Christian Brothers)(Brief article)
Jun 30, 2006 ... DUBLIN, Ireland -- The Irish Christian Brothers announced early this month a plan to end the order's day-to-day direct involvement in their 109 secondary and 29 primary schools in Ireland by as early as the fall term. The schools will be managed by a new lay-run charitable trust called ...