Book excerpt: Despite human fallings, our own and those of others, we have a capacity, a power, even a destiny for achieving happiness in our personal relationships and enriching the lives of our communities. At The Crossroads: A Vision Of Hope realistically examines the promise and peril we face in a world of rapid and sometimes threatening changes, a world of advances in knowledge and declines in civility, and provides reasons for hope "based not on wishful thinking, but on the timeless values and ideas which have sustained and do sustain us through all sorts of sociological and political and economic changes". At The Crossroads: A Vision Of Hope reads like a visit with a friend concerned about our future, a friend who happens to be a history teacher and lawyer as well as a priest and bishop, a friend who, therefore, provides us with a unique perspective which might be called the best of both worlds.