The Bells of St. Mary's: a tribute to a classic that humanizes CatholicismAnyone who has survived Catholic schooling -- in my case, eight years of torture by Dominican nuns, then four years of more refined sadism at the hands of Jesuit priests -- cannot help watching Leo McCarey's The Bells of St. Mary's with deeply mixed emotions. One of Hollywood's most popular religious … [Read more...] about My Guiltiest Pleasure
In This Issue 2000
Mike’s Back in Town
Bronx boy, bard and beef baron J.P. Donleavy converses with John Froude.James Patrick Donleavy, known to his friends as Mike, is standing in the lobby of the New York Athletic Club. He observes. He notes with approval the liveried attendant silently holding up a placard before a new barbarian. On which is written PORTABLE PHONES ARE NOT PERMITTED. Mike is dapper, be-tweeded … [Read more...] about Mike’s Back in Town
Sláinte! A Fine Cuppa Tay
When I was a child, I suspected my Da's sister Violet was a gypsy. Not that she was a real descendant of the wandering tribes of Egypt, but she looked like one. Her jet-black hair was always tied back in a tight bun, and she always wore blowsy flowered dresses, scandalous crimson lipstick and dangly earrings. Then while we were visiting one cold and blustery winter Sunday when … [Read more...] about Sláinte! A Fine Cuppa Tay
A Founding Father
By Pat O'Neill
October/November 2000
A Shy Priest from Cavan Who Helped Tame a Frontier Town Imagine him, pale Irish skin against a black robe. On that bright spring morning in 1845 when he first arrived in the little town that was fast-filling a mud shelf overlooking the Missouri River, the Indians – the Shawnee in their calico flocks and turbans, the Sac and Fox with their shaved heads and painted faces – must … [Read more...] about A Founding Father