This article examines the theological and ecological significance of the International Pastoral Letter on the Columbia River Watershed issued by the U.S. and Canadian Bishops in 2001. It argues that through its inclusive, participatory process, its emphasis on the watershed as a significant locus for theological reflection, and its strong moral, spiritual vision regarding what a watershed is and can be, the Letter makes a significant contribution to Catholic teaching on the environment. However, the article also claims that due to its generalizing rhetorical style, its weak vision of spirituality and its lack of a critical, prophetic edge, the Letter fails to realize its full potential. The article poses questions about the central meaning and purpose of such pastoral letters and about what the Roman Catholic community can learn from the present Letter that might strengthen future attempts to address environmental or other pressing concerns.

Our paper sets the groundwork for a Christian theology of dating. We begin with a critique of the religious and secular sources on dating. We next turn to theological works on friendship, marriage, and feminist spirituality to distill issues that we deem important for a positive Christian theology of dating. Because dating differs from these perspectives—it is both temporary (as opposed to marriage) and sexual (as opposed to friendship)—we conclude by offering a two-tiered perspective on dating. On the first level, we offer a narrative: two people are each on a separate journey, they encounter each other, their journeys become intertwined and are forever changed from the meeting even if they do not remain together. On the second level, we sublate the narrative by locating it within the broader Christian gospel.

Scripture offers readers not a prescriptive printout but a recital behind our experience, invites a transformative engagement between text and life. The main insight available from Wisdom of Solomon is that Wisdom, intimate of God and structuring element of all creation, saves her friends into Life, not without their collaboration; the alternative is Death. Processes of transposition and transformation are the hermeneutical key to the book, both as authored and as read. The book's few central claims shift from genre to genre and from section to section for fresh and illustrative presentation. Transformation is also the challenge offered to readers: reappropriate the heritage afresh and thus survive. The envisioned transposition implies not simply change but growth out of a profound fidelity to something valued. What is at stake in the book is the “mother of transformations”: the journey from life through death, either to Life or to nothingness (Death), but also the survival of the Jewish community in Alexandria in the first century C.E.

The contemporary American labor movement is in a state of crisis. Not only is the membership base at a low-point, but a host of negative factors and obstacles to growth present enormous challenges for its future viability. In the past, organized labor has been most effective when there was a strong alliance with the Catholic community. Since the middle of the twentieth century, however, this association has weakened, and in some cases has turned to opposition. The premise of this article is that a renewed church-labor alliance could provide needed assistance to reinvigorate the labor movement while also advancing the social concerns of the Catholic Church in this nation.

The focus of this article is twofold. First, recognizing the influence of the mass media on the religious views of many undergraduate students, it examines the negative depiction of God in several popular American films and concludes that the image of God as absent, impotent and demonic ought to be addressed in the classroom. The second issue concerns the use of film in the classroom—both to encourage students to sharpen their understanding of contemporary theology, and to then use this theology as a basis for understanding and evaluating the religious messages carried by contemporary films. The films explored are What Dreams May Come, Dogma, The End of the Affair, The Rapture, and Stigmata.