LAST WORD I Firmly Resolve B.D. Mc Clay I go to confession mostly to confess some variation on the same three or four sins. Sometimes I can go quite a while—months, even—before I fall into one of...
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SHORT TAKES B. D. MCCLAY Distance, Not Desertion Letter from New York City According to New York by the Numbers, as of March 16, there were almost 5,500 people in Rikers. Of these,...
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SCREEN B. D. MCCLAY Born Guilty Francesco, the son of a rich merchant of Assisi and now a prisoner of war, is being led into captivity when he hears screaming behind him. The people who are not...
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B. D. MCCLAY Small Graces Big cities can breed indifference. Prayer helps us resist it. n the Tyburn Convent, on the north side of London, the nuns pray for people all night. This practice is...
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ARTS B. D. McClay The Burden of Suffering FRANCIS POULENC'S DIALOGUES DES CARMELITES To begin with, there really were sixteen Carmelites, the martyrs of Compiegne. They really did vow martyrdom...
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B. D. McClay Innocents (Almost) Abroad The Children's Crusade Marcel Schwob Wakefield Press, $11.95, 56 pp. In 1198, Innocent III opened Rome's first foundling home, the Hospital of the Holy...
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ARTS B. D. McClay Narrative Loop WHICH DECISIONS REALLY MATTER? Russian Doll, a Netflix series released last month, follows a woman as she lives and dies over and over. Every time she dies, she...
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ARTS B. D. McClay An Unenclosed Mind A BENEDICTINE NUN'S FRIENDSHIP WITH GEORGE BERNARD SHAW The most interesting moment in Hugh Whitemore's The Best of Friends—a 1987 play about the friendship...
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B. D. McClay Maria Goretti, Pray for Us A SAINT FOR (ANOTHER) SEXUAL-ABUSE CRISIS Maria Goretti was an eleven-year-old girl who was stalked, assaulted, and murdered by the twenty-year-old son of...
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B. D. McClay A Saint Born of Blood Catherine of Siena A Life of Passion and Purpose André Vauchez Paulist Press, $24.95, 256 pp. When I became Catholic and picked a confirmation saint, I had...
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