Word: devil
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Playing the devil's advocate is Father Andrew M. Greeley's favorite avocation. His novels continually irritate the church he serves, by revealing Vatican politics and presenting flawed priests. The narrator of An Occasion of Sin (Putnam; 352 pages; $19.95) puts forth the most imperfect of them all. The scurrilous, irritable Father Lar McAuliffe is assigned to test the claims of sainthood for his late detested colleague, John Cardinal McGlynn, martyred in Nicaragua. Father Lar rubs his hands in anticipation -- he knows all about the Cardinal's mistress, his alcoholism and his rumored misuse of church funds...
...sweeping change is the result of a deal the government cut with the Teamsters in 1989 to settle a massive racketeering suit alleging that the union's leadership had made a "devil's pact" with the Cosa Nostra. To avoid a costly trial and the threat of a government trusteeship, Teamsters leaders agreed to major reforms. If the Orlando convention follows the new rules, in December the 1.6 million members of the most powerful U.S. union will freely elect their president and 17-member executive board for the first time. That's good news for the rank and file, whose...
...Prince of Thieves finally jolts awake. Robin orchestrates a cunning climactic assault, the Merry Men's arrows sizzle through the sky like happy Scuds, and the bustle of bodies and cameras produces congenial movie movement. Two of the actors carry this larkish spirit throughout the film. Geraldine McEwan, in devil-doll weeds, makes for a hilariously desiccated witch. And Alan Rickman, fairly drooling with delight at his own wickedness, plays the Sheriff of Nottingham as a vibrant cartoon villain: Snidely Whiplash rampant...
...close to the subject matter of his story. He was bicycling home through Manhattan's Central Park. "I've taken the route so many times in % daylight I know it by heart," he says, "and I lined my bike up perfectly to shoot through an unlit passage." Perhaps the devil had been at work after all. A well-remembered curb had mysteriously moved several feet, and Morrow did a front flip into the air. He walked the rest of the way home, carrying his smashed bike, in pitch darkness...
...such exertions have been unconvincing. Augustine, speaking of the struggle to understand evil, at last wrote fatalistically, "Do not seek to know more than is appropriate." At the time of the Black Death, William Langland wrote in Piers Plowman: "If you want to know why God allowed the Devil to lead us astray . . . then your eyes ought to be in your arse...