Commentaries

A team of reporters and an editor from The Boston Globe have published a book entitled Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy which gives us a thorough, objective study of Joseph and Rose Kennedy's youngest child. (1)

John F. Haught is a Roman Catholic theologian who specializes in religion and science and who has served on the faculty at Georgetown University for most of his career. His new book, God and the New Atheism, is a reply to recent assaults on religion by three popular religious skeptics - Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. (1) Let's focus on three of the many issues which Haught raises.

Suppose a child in the United States dies from a medically treatable condition because her parents prayed over her but did not take her to a doctor. Will criminal charges be filed against the parents? In most cases, no. American prosecutors have found it difficult to obtain convictions in such cases because the laws in most states exempt parents from prosecution for child neglect, child abuse, and manslaughter if their religion mandates spiritual healing. The statute in Wisconsin is typical.

Sidney Poitier was the first black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. He won it in 1963 for his role in Lilies of the Field. (1) Subsequently he received virtually every major honor which an actor can receive. (2) Poitier starred in some forty films, including Blackboard Jungle (1955); The Defiant Ones (1958); The Bedford Incident (1965); A Patch of Blue (1965); Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967); To Sir, With Love (1967); and In the Heat of the Night (1967).