Ash Wednesday, 1932 An art student stands on the avenue in New York City in 1932, looking up at the Empire State Building, recently completed. Most people from around the ...

On August 14th, it seemed as though New York City had become a world where many of the usual rules didn't apply�from walking in the middle of the street to offering a stranger a ride ...

We were at the third gas station before we knew we were screwed . "No gas-no power!" a red-faced woman with a thick Newfoundland accent shouted as we pulled the car up to the pumps. Her ...

Every human being has dignity and should be treated with respect. It's easy, isn't it?Easy it should be to understand this concept. Not only does the Catholic Church teach it (...

By all accounts, Gay Pride Week in Toronto was different this year. Normally, the festivities draw thousands of tourists to the capital of Ontario and the annual parade?that took place on Sunday June 29?can attract ...

Did you see that kid in the Wal-Mart a while back, the two-year-old flailing about red-faced and sobbing in the shopping buggy? He might have belonged to ...

We were on our honeymoon when Steve suggested I take a dive. SCUBA diving's great, he explained. "The water, the fish-you'll love it!" I wasn't so sure. In all my years of ...

Somehow, getting a flat tire in a church parking lot seems wrong. After all, I could have used that hour to get a head start to the beach. Joined friends for ...

As for every young man brought up in an Irish household, for me watching Notre Dame football on Saturday afternoon is practically a religion. But that Saturday, in ...

My friend Smita (name changed) refuses to write brochures and marketing material for companies because she feels uncomfortable "bending the truth." It's common knowledge that brochures sometimes misrepresent product features, but she won't write brochures at ...

This summer seeping through the quagmire of continuous news coverage of disappearing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the latest J.Lo and Ben antics was news on the ...

Nearly six years to the day that I received my first theology degree, I was back in Boston at an ordination (see box below). I was at the Episcopal cathedral, not the Catholic one. Jen, a ...

Summertime…and the living is on the go. This summer I headed south to El Salvador in Central America. It's a breathtakingly beautiful land country, but with a turbulent history that includes many modern-day Christian ...

I've never really been one for shopping, but after I learned I was pregnant with my first child, I started looking forward to all the impending trips to the malls and department ...

A couple weeks ago, with Labor Day behind me and school back in session, I gave in to the temptation of calling it quits for the summer, and mentally fast forwarded to the bleakness that ...

I'll admit it-I'm a student loan debtor . Big time. And like most of you I'm not expecting forgiveness anytime soon. My loan woe A few years ago I set out to improve myself ...

People like Julia Roberts, Kate Hudson, Jennifer Lopez, and countless other show biz hotties, are renowned for their striking beauty and perfect bods. Some were born that way and others had a bit of help ...

Could you survive in a strange city on $7 an hour? This is the simple question that social critic and Ph.D. biologist Barbara Ehrenreich set out to answer. The 2001 ...

You have heard this story: it's about a good man, a complex man who had the world at his feet, then watched it drop away; who gave generously, lived loudly, and ...

Renée LaReau (center, back) participated in the 1988 National Spelling Bee, where she was eliminated by the word 'Terpsichore.' You're kidding, right? So maybe watching 250 pimply, precocious adolescents spell words onstage ...