The Valier, Montana, Catholic church is one-hundred years old.  Sunday evening, in the midst of a world of strife and alienation, the members came together Sunday evening to consecrate an addition to their brick building, which was begun in 1937 in the midst of world crisis.  This is what it means to be a people of faith: a community of hope aligned against destruction....

From the point of view of the British Empire — which was a strange melding of international corporation, religion, and monarchy (Queen as CEO) –  “Rupert’s Land” in western Canada was simply a feeder for the Hudson’s Bay Company.  The trapper’s trading forts there were profitable until fashions changed away from beaver-fur felt hats.  Then the...

In 1990 when I was teaching high school English in Heart Butte, Montana, on the Blackfeet Reservation, I had a problem. Some of the students had flunked sophomore, junior, and senior years of English and were enrolled in all three years at once. I was the only English teacher except for a remedial teacher working on basics. Most of these multiple enrollees were making...