Editorial: Medicaid Cuts Hurt the Poor
A tug of war is taking place—not among children, though they may be grievously affected by this contest’s outcome—but between the federal government and the states. The struggle is over Medicaid, the entitlement program that guarantees health care for over 50 million low-income Americans. So far, the cost has been divided between the federal government and the individual states. But now the Bush administration, in its 2006 budget proposal, ...
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Genetic Engineering Is Not the Answer
by Sean McDonagh
In 1992 the then-chief executive of Monsanto, Robert Shapiro, told the Harvard Business Review that genetically modified crops will be necessary to feed a growing world population. He predicted that if population levels were to rise to 10 billion, humanity would face two options: either open up new land for cultivation or increase crop yields. Since the first choice was not feasible, because we were already cultivating marginal land and in the process ...
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The Disturbing Trends Behind Parish Closings
by Joseph Claude Harris
The Archdiocese of Boston recently completed an evaluation of the demographic and fiscal viability of parishes that resulted in a 25 percent reduction in the number of parishes. A principal reason for initiating this reconfiguration process was the fact that one-third of the pastors in Boston are over the age of 70. With fewer priests available for future parish assignments, smaller parishes with mounting unpaid bills, shrinking membership and leaky ...
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Renew-ing the Church
by Terry Golway
When he looks back on the years when he was a young parish priest in suburban New Jersey and then in wounded, smoldering Newark, Msgr. Thomas A. Kleissler remembers the lessons he learned in the living rooms and kitchens of his parishioners. “It was,” he said, “the richest experience of my life as a priest.” In those settings he saw firsthand the lives, the troubles and the triumphs of the servants of God. In those small settings, he saw life writ ...
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With God on His Side
by James T. Keane
The 1985 bestseller and nostalgic spoof Growing Up Catholic included a parody of The Baltimore Catechism and asked the following question: “Who’s really in hell?” The answer: “We cannot say for certainty that anyone is in hell, except for maybe Hitler and Judas.” Even though Christians (well, most Christians) are loath to condemn anyone to certain damnation, Judas usually makes the cut, because his twin sins of a bribed betrayal ...
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