The young people — most of them around 18 years old — have worked from 10 am to 10 pm for six days straight. It’s tedious work — unloading trays of bread loaves, sorting them, roaming from floor to floor…

"I was full of fear about participating in a project with Americans," says Raya Khadish, a Palestinian teen living in one of the world's political hot spots: the West Bank. Thinking that people in the United States disliked Arabs, the 16-year-old girl worried about how she would be perceived.

Raya's fears were shared by other Palestinian teenagers approached to be a part of Cyber Bridges, a Catholic Relief Services program that links high school students in the United States with their counterparts in other countries via e-mail. "We were reluctant to get involved," shares 16-year-old Haitham Abu Arish, who lives in the small village of Beit Ula near Bethlehem.

Fr. Clarence Burby is an Iraqi Jesuit priest who has worked for ten years in Jordan and frequently visits Baghdad. This interview was conducted during a March 21 phone call from Amman.

What Saddam Tolerates

Could you describe your involvement with Christian…

To reach the spot on the Jordan River where archaeologists believe Jesus was probably baptized, you wind through a humid thicket of low tamarisk trees and bamboo-like reeds. Making your way to the chalky-green water, you’ll notice paw prints of…

Routine Catholicism

In Jordan, as in most Middle Eastern countries, Catholics — and indeed all Christians — are the minority. But in general, their lives in a Muslim society are far more ordinary than Westerners, who see the Middle East only…

The Rhythm of Life

LS: Your book indicates that the crisis should impel Catholics to dissent less, to be less inclined to pick and choose the doctrines they'll follow.

GW: I think the crisis should impel everyone to look more seriously at…