Before I converted, God gave me a mission, which soon became the idea for my nonprofit, The Solution to Hunger, Inc. I could see how all the components began to fit together to create something innovative and new that could truly become the solution to world hunger. I felt like God spoke to me then. The problem was I didn’t know how to make the vision come to life. So, I got to work on what I could do.
Taking the last liturgical step on the path to the priesthood means vowing obedience, lying prostrate before the altar, and symbolically receiving the Book of the Gospels as a sign of one’s new role in the Church.
Pizza in the Eternal City tends to exemplify a proposition I have long defended: what crossed the Atlantic going west was usually improved in the process. I like Roman pizza, as I like Rome, but I like New York pizza, Chicago pizza, Detroit pizza, and just about every other variant of American pizza — except Hawaiian — more. Still, when in Rome, do as the Romans.
Recently, I had two experiences of beauty that moved me to reflect on what happens to us when we experience exceptional beauty. I would describe both experiences as “ecstatic.”
Misinformation, disinformation, fake news. It’s around us 24/7 on social media, and bombards us in all forms of media. It’s a big topic in my journalism courses at St. John’s University, where I teach my students how to avoid it: Verify everything, provide balance in your stories, and be unbiased in your reporting.
In preparation for Pentecost, I went to Sunday Mass in the cathedral church where I had ministered in northeast China. At 6:30 a.m., I participated in the early morning Mass with about 300 people. I was shocked to find the leader of the song was the man that the Religious Affairs Bureau had placed in the bishop’s office as the receptionist. His responsibility had been to “care for” and inform public security on the daily life of the bishop. There on Sunday morning, he was leading the community in song and prayer.
Several weeks after Servant of God Dorothy Day’s funeral, I was interviewed for a television program in 1981 by a “liberated nun.” She asked me, “What is the legacy of Dorothy Day?” Without hesitation, I said: “Her faith!” The nun was nonplussed, for she thought I would have said: “Her activism, her protests against war,” and so forth. (Today, the nun’s congregation no longer exists.)
“When the always well-written and often wrongheaded New Yorker dislikes something, chances are good that I’ll like it — a principle that holds, with certain reservations, in the case of “Dignitas Infinita,” the April 8 “Declaration of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on Human Dignity.”
At the age of 75, bishops are mandated to submit their letter of resignation from administration directly to the Holy Father in Rome.
The passage of time is making it less and less likely for a person to stand shoulder to shoulder with a veteran of the Korean War, and even less likely with a veteran of World War II. That both would also happen to be prisoners of war? The chances are quite slight in 2024.
