Like many Catholics in the U.S., I once went through the trauma of my childhood church closing… That little church had been my life, but on that sunny Saturday, everything was all about tomorrow.
Guest Columnists
Putting Together Your Bucket List
The movie “The Bucket List” inspired people to reflect on what they want to do before they die. I honestly thought I was doing well with my list – until the cancer scare.
Easter Is Not a Question Mark
The grittiness of Lent, and the “intransigent historical claims” without which Easter makes no sense at all, should remind us that Christianity does not rest on myths or “narratives,” but on radically changed human lives whose effect on their times are historical fact.
Lessons from Mexico For the World’s Youth
“When everything seems too much, when it seems that the world is crashing down around you, embrace his cross, draw close to him and please, never let go of his hand; please, never leave him,” Pope Francis said.
Catholic Almanac Well Into Second Century
Thinking in terms of the little engine that could, the annual Catholic Almanac, which sells about 5,000 copies each year, not only could, it can and does, each and every year since 1904.
A Sordid Anniversary, To Be Remembered
The crucial moment in this calculated aggression came 70 years ago, on March 8-10, 1946, in Lviv, Ukraine. There, after more than a year of secret police coercion, a non-canonical “council” (or “Sobor”) of Ukrainian Greek Catholic clergy “voted” (without discussion and by a “spontaneous” show of hands) to abrogate the 1596 Union of Brest that had brought their Church into full communion with Rome. Not a single Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishop was present.
Resisting the Demagogue
YOU’VE GOT TO have a good memory for mid-Sixties pop music to remember the Seekers, an Aussie quartet that once vied for the top of the British charts with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones (and did quite well here in the U.S., too). But this isn’t a pop culture quiz; it’s a reflection on our increasingly disturbing 2016 presidential election, with a little help from, yes, the Seekers.
Learning to Listen In the Year of Mercy
I WAS SITTING in a reconciliation room once, confessing my usual garden variety list of sins when I was suddenly aware that the priest was gazing out the window. Being reflective, perhaps? No, I was fairly sure he was daydreaming. I left my confession with the feeling that I was forgiven by God but ignored by my confessor.
Suicide Law Puts Many at Risk
“Choice” rings hollow when pressures come from family members who increasingly see their financial resources being drained and their loved ones as burdens; when health insurance companies will pay for a lethal dose of drugs, but deny a claim for expensive chemotherapy treatments; when health providers subtly make judgment calls about whose lives are worth living and whose are not; and when the mechanisms of our very government sanction and assist in death-making.
Fondness for a Former First Lady
Some people are not distracted, and Nancy Reagan was one of those who was not distracted. May she rest in eternal peace.