Vol. 77, No. 5

Cover

Little women

By Meg McSherry Breslin
Is your little girl looking too grown up? It’s time to ask whether the creeping sexuality of today’s consumer culture is making inroads at home.

Photo essay

Picturing the end

By Jerry Bleem, O.F.M.
Artists have been imagining salvation and damnation for centuries, but the “outsider artists” of the exhibit HEAVEN+HELL offer a distinctly personal take on what awaits us on the other side.

Essay

A year in the Promised Land

By Cathleen Chopra-McGowan
A sojourn in the city of David reveals both the joy and sorrow of life in Jerusalem.

Interview

Putting Paul in his place

An interview with classicist Sarah Ruden
The apostle to the Gentiles may not be a modern man, but surprising things happen when we let Paul be a man of his time.

Sounding Board

Park it!

By Thomas Massaro, S.J.
Ladies and gentlemen, stop your engines: Our addiction to the automobile is in need of an overhaul. In Feedback readers debate the merits of curbing our enthusiasm for the car.

Essays

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

Random acts of chocolate

By Ann O’Connor
A confirmation class discovers that service its own sweet reward.

Poem: The Order of Melchizedek

By Brian Doyle

Wise Guide: Good listener

By Christine Schenk, C.S.J.
Though he lived before the age of the parish council, Cardinal John Henry Newman saw the value in hearing hte voice of the faithful.

Departments

Editors’ Note

You May Be Right (Letters to the Editor)

Signs of the Times (News)

Catholic Tastes (Humor)

Culture in Context: Music, book, and film reviews

Glad You Asked: Does the church believe in life on other planets?

At Home with Our Faith  (Family spirituality)

Eye of the Beholder (Art meditation)

Columns

The Examined Life: Tunnel vision
By Bryan Cones

Margin Notes: This means war
By Kevin Clarke

Culture in Context: I’d like to teach the world to sing
By Patrick McCormick

Testaments: A joy to be around
By Alice Camille