The church is not a building.

Last Sunday we were seated in a corner of the local pancake house. Somehow that morning, miraculously, we had made it to the early service--although not quite on time--taken a little bike ride, and were now looking forward to a hearty early brunch of pancakes and Western omelettes. After we ordered, our 9-year-old started first humming and then singing a catchy tune we had learned at our parish fest the previous Sunday. And, lo and behold, even his older brother, who has been complaining about how he hates "stupid church" for pretty much every Sunday of the last four years, joined in: "The church is not a building where people go to pray; it's not made out of sticks and stones, it's not made out of day. We are the church, the body of our Lord. We are all God's children, we have been restored."

I had to smile, not just for the incongruity of hearing these words sung out loud by our church-allergic fifth grader--or because the folks at the next table were grinning--but also because it reminded me of this month's cover story on church renovations. Their sweetly sung little ditty seemed like the perfect antidote to the vitriol and mean-spiritedness that increasingly surfaces these days when parishes undertake church-renovation projects. In my mind I pictured a parish-assembly-turned-donnybrook being crashed by a children's choir with the song "The church is not a building ...".

In "Who moved my tabernacle?", Robert McClory talks to people on both sides of the barricades in parishes that have recently undergone hotly contested renovation projects. He looks at the underlying issues as well as the organizing tactics that in the past few years have been turning church renovations into increasingly explosive controversies.

"Are you a Care-of-the-Souler, too?" our former pastor would, sometimes inquire of parishioners who would talk to him of insights they had gained from reading Thomas Moore's surprise runaway bestseller. He seemed a little bemused but also intrigued by--and grateful for--the growing interest in soul-searching the book had spurred. We very much enjoyed interviewing Moore for this month's special fall book section and discovered that, despite his writing for a broader audience, he continues to treasure his Irish Catholic roots. The book section also features an essay from Father Andrew Greeley ("It's fun to be Catholic!"), Bishop Robert Morneau's defense of rereading; an interview with the dean of Catholic book publishing, and Patrick McCormick's reviews of recent pope books.

Finally, don't miss the launch of our new regular department Glad You Asked, which presents lively answers to basic questions of the Catholic faith's teaching, tradition, and practice--a service that many of our readers, especially from younger generations, have requested.