Inside
NCR New
board members; a word on cover photo
At its biennial meeting in April the
board of the National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company welcomed two new
members.
Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary Sr. Gretchen Hailer is
currently vocation director of the orders Western Province. She is also a
catechist and a consultant in faith formation for Catholic publishers,
producers, dioceses and parishes.
Born in Boston, Hailer grew up in Los Angeles. She has a degree in
religious education from the University of San Francisco. She is author of
"Eight Faces of Faith," an audio cassette program on multiple intelligences;
"Believing in a Media Culture," on media literacy; and "Stewardship: Creating
Our Future," a mini-course on vocation discernment.
She has been active in ecumenical and interfaith activities since
1965.
Bill Mitchell was recently named on-line editor and director of
marketing at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists in St. Petersburg,
Fla.
Mitchell wrote his first story for NCR when he was a
freshman at Notre Dame in 1967, on James Kavanaughs decision to leave the
priesthood. A veteran reporter and editor, he has served in many capacities
with the Detroit Free Press, Time, the San Jose Mercury
News and elsewhere. More recently he has focused on emerging new media
technologies and spent three years as director of development at Universal New
Media, a division of Andrews McMeel Universal.
He is married to Carol A. Mitchell, a clinical psychologist and
spiritual director who specializes in retreat work. They have three children
and two grandchildren.
Our cover photo this week is lifted
from a film shot by the Soviet army after the liberation of Auschwitz on Jan.
27, 1945. It shows the surviving Mengele twins being led out of the camp. The
two girls in the foreground are Eva Mozes (now Kor), on the left, and her
sister Miriam on the right. Eva Kors lawsuit against the Bayer
corporation is at the heart of John Allens story on page 3.
In some ways the picture is misleading. The Mengele twins never
wore striped camp uniforms. They were allowed to keep their own clothes. The
Soviets wanted a more dramatic image for their film, however, and instructed
them to put on uniforms; note how the shirts actually look like jackets on the
girls.
Also, the twins had been eating nonstop since the SS fled
Auschwitz in early January, and they had put on a good bit of weight by the
time the Soviets arrived. They look far more robust in this picture than they
did for most of their time in the camp. Of more than 3,000 twins selected for
research by Mengele, fewer than 200 survived.
Dont look now, but Steve
Forbes, the rich, flat-tax guy who is running for president, attended the
American Cardinals Dinner in Boston in late April. The purpose of the
event was to raise money for The Catholic University of America, with the handy
side effect of photo ops with the cardinals.
All this is, naturally, on the Forbes Web site, replete with
tux-and-tie pics. The caption on one says "Steve Forbes is greeted by His
Eminence John Cardinal OConnor, archbishop of New York." The photo,
though, shows him shaking hands with L.A. Cardinal Roger Mahony.
Maybe Forbes isnt yet ready for prime time.
-- Michael Farrell
National Catholic Reporter, May 7,
1999
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