September 2009

Vol. 74, No. 4

Cover

Final exam: Can we reinvent Catholic schools?

By Sarah Karp
School’s out forever? Sarah Karp looks at a few ways America’s Catholic schools cram toward a passing grade in viability.

 

Feature

System update required

By Father Joseph O'Keefe
The nation’s Catholic school system was designed for a different time than the digital age it confronts today. Father Joseph O’Keefe, S.J. retools a 21st-century Catholic school.

 

Feature

Learning experience

By Jeff Parrott

When can you graduate from university to elementary school? Jeff Parrott reports on Catholic university programs matching young people committed to teaching with parochial schools determined to stay open.

 

Reader Survey

Is your faith working?

By Megan Sweas
Are you satisfied with your life’s vocation or just longing for a vacation? A U.S. Catholic survey scans the help wanted signs of the times to find out if most people feel like they’re doing the Lord’s work or merely getting worked over on the job.

 

Interview

Welcome center

An interview with Jesuit Father Paola Dall'Ogio
Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, S.J. extends the hand of hospitality—and dialogue—in a Middle East in dire need of both. In this interview, Bryan Cones studies “human biodiversity” with a modern monastic determined to keep the conversation going among Christians, Jews, and Muslims at an ancient site where modern civilizations meet.

 

Essays

(Essays, short stories, and poems are not available online.)

Practicing Catholic: Fast friends

By Sue Stanton
The author explains how she learned to get the most out of an interreligious fast: take it slow.

The terrible brilliance

A detail from Brian Doyle on the terrible beauty of suffering at the hopeful center of our faith.

In Person: All my children

By John Rosengren
Forget about the shoe! What Rita and Russ Hoffman need is a dormitory. Foster parents to more than 500 kids, this Guinness-sized family grew out of a mutual call to parenthood.

 

Departments

Editors' Note

You May Be Right (Letters to the Editor)

Signs of the Times (News)

Catholic Tastes (Humor)

Culture in Context: Music, film, and book reviews

At Home with Our Faith  (Family spirituality)

Eye of the Beholder (Art meditation)

Glad You Asked: When do the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ?

 

Columns

The Examined Life: Priests off the pedestal
By Bryan Cones

Margin Notes: Let them eat cash
By Kevin Clarke

Culture in Context: Re-cycle your self
By Patrick McCormick

Testaments: Practice what you teach
By Alice Camille

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