October 2011

Vol. 76, No. 10

Cover

Urban planting

By Olga Bonfiglio
While not quite Eden, concrete jungles and neighborhood dead zones are showing new signs of life, thanks to the efforts of a few green thumbs.

Sidebars:

Parish resources for growing an urban garden

Interview

Eating is believing

An interview with Chef Kevin Gillespie
The American diet is making us sick in soul as well as body, says this former Top Chef contestant. A proponent of the Slow Food movement, he suggests Catholics should sit and think before they take and eat.

Sounding Board

Let’s stop ignoring domestic violence

By Father Charles W. Dahm, O.P.
When hands strike at home, the church can’t tell victims to turn the other cheek. In Feedback readers consider the best ways for parishes to provide safe havens to victims.

Feature

Where do babies come from?

By Patrick T. Reardon
Though Catholic teaching says that in vitro fertilization is ill-conceived, quite a few Catholic couples are putting their faith in the laboratory in a last ditch effort for a family.

Sidebars:

How parishes can help infertile couples

Hard to conceive: Sometimes getting pregnant is difficult–or not even possible

Essays

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

In Person: Paint job

By Sue Stanton
When artist Jo Myers Walker discovered her inner artist, she found the Holy Spirit alive on the canvas. Now Walker helps bring out the artist in everyone.

I’m open

By Joan Sauro, C.S.J.
Sometimes it’s possible to see grace in the gridiron and the Holy Spirit bobbing and weaving on the basketball court.

Departments

Editors’ Note

You May Be Right (Letters)

Signs of the Times (News)

Catholic Tastes (Humor)

Culture in Context: Music, film, and book reviews

Glad You Asked: Can a Catholic receive communion in a Protestant church?

At Home with Our Faith

Eye of the Beholder (Art meditation)

Columns

The Examined Life: Road tripped
By Bryan Cones

Margin Notes: Starved for attention
By Kevin Clarke

Culture in Context: Personality disorder
By Patrick McCormick

Testaments: Follow the leader
By Alice Camille