It is hard to escape the sense of moral twilight extending out from our nation’s capital, a dimming of the day in which our leaders can no longer see clearly enough to distinguish service from license, morals from money, ethics from expediency. Consider the remarkable fact that, in the course of a single week, the two most powerful men in…
Sometimes a book’s importance depends more on who is reading it and talking about it than what it actually says. That explains the widespread celebration of Yale University law professor Stephen Carter’s new book, The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion (Basic Books, 1993). Carter’s book got its best plug from President Clinton, who hosted…
President Clinton was quoting the author of the Declaration of Independence in Beijing: “We are convinced that certain rights are universal, that, as one of the heroes of our independence, Thomas Jefferson, wrote in his last letter 172 years ago: ‘All eyes are opened, or opening to the rights of man.’” The president went on to spell out those rights—“to…
This year’s presidential hopefuls seem adrift, far removed from the world of heartache and hopelessness that Rev. Daniel Berrigan, S.J., finds in New York City neighborhood where he lives. When New Yorkers cast their primary ballots on April 7, Father Berrigan won’t be among them. “I’ve never voted in my life; it’s never made any sense to me,” he said…
At the end of what has been called the “American Century,” there is an understandable pride that comes with living in what is rightly described as the strongest, richest, freest and most generous country on earth. We are a hardworking, upright people, given to charity, with a government that is open and accountable, and an economy that rewards initiative and…