THE SECOND VOLUME of my biography of “St. John Paul II, The End and the Beginning,” benefited immensely from the resources of Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance [IPN, from its Polish initials], which was established after the Revolution of 1989 to preserve records related to the Polish experience under the Nazis and the communists.
Why ask the Hispanic cardinal question? For nearly 14 months, Catholics engaged in the process of the Fifth National Encuentro of Hispanic/Latino Ministry have been naming key concerns about their experience in church and society. Meaningful leadership is at the top of such concerns.
POPE FRANCIS HAS led the Church for the last five years, smelling his sheep throughout the world. He has been sensitive to the pastoral needs of his flock, showing deep concern for the poor and the marginalized.
THE HEADLINE ON a March 3 story on the Crux website was certainly arresting – “Cardinal on charges of rigged synods: ‘There was no maneuvering!’”
AS THE DIOCESE of Brooklyn continues to celebrate the Year of Vocations with the theme “Reawaken the Call,” it encourages everyone to become involved in this important ministry in the life of the Church.
SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS ago last month, Sophie and Hans Scholl and their friend Christian Probst were executed by guillotine at Munich’s Stadelheim Prison for high treason. Their crime? They were the leaders of an anti-Nazi student organization, the White Rose, and had been caught distributing leaflets at their university in the Bavarian capital; the leaflets condemned the Third Reich, its genocide of the Jews and its futile war.
It was the weekend of Dec. 4, 1959 and my Giants were playing the Cleveland Browns for the Division title that Sunday. My father had season tickets and I could have gone except that my senior homeroom at Brooklyn Prep had a mandatory retreat.
As a young boy I had some very powerful statements I could use under many different circumstances. One of the most powerful was, “Do-over.”
It is 1957 and my first week of school at St. Teresa School in Woodside. I had turned six in June and so was probably the oldest in the first grade. Sister Margaret Agnes had asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up, and I had responded, “I want to be a priest.”
Days apart, clinics offering in vitro fertilization in Cleveland, Ohio, and San Francisco, Calif., had malfunctions in their storage tanks, endangering thousands of frozen eggs and embryos.
