A recent Associated Press story accused diocesan review boards around the country of failing in their mission to investigate claims of clergy sexual abuse.
Up Front and Personal
Make 2020 a Year of Forgiveness
As we trudge into 2020, a year that promises to be just as rancorous politically as the year we recently ended, I find myself thinking about forgiveness.
With God, Endings Lead To New Beginnings
“Isn’t it sad,” someone once told me, “that on New Year’s Eve, you’re counting down to the end of your birthday?” I was born on the last day of the year, so countdowns to the start of the new year always meant the end of my birthday. That never bothered me; the celebration always continued. The music still played. The party wasn’t over.
Christmas Promises
Two days before Christmas in 1973, it was cold and beginning to snow when I set out from Great Lakes, Ill., at 6 a.m. to get home to my boys on Long Island. I was in the U.S. Navy then.
Advent Gratitude: A Handmade Christmas
As I carefully unwrapped and hung the ornaments on the tree this year, I was struck by how many of them were made by hand, crafted expressly for me and my family. How had I never noticed this before?
Advent and Waiting On God’s Time
My wife and I are expecting our fifth child in February. It’s been six years since we had a newborn in the house, so there are some things we need to relearn about life with a baby. Most pressing perhaps is the role that technology will play in our family life when the new baby arrives.
A Moment of Deep Grace
Back in October, on a sunny Sunday morning, I had a very moving and beautiful experience of grace. I was in Chicago with one of my brothers-in-law, running in the marathon.
The Gardens of Ordinary Times
Years ago, a child in my family asked, “If a Church is God’s house, is a cemetery God’s garden?” I lack the theologically correct answer. Yet, that question recognized what I know is true: there is something profoundly sacred about the land where we lay our loved ones to rest.
A Model Priest
On his upper right shoulder were tattooed the words: VENI VIDI VICI.
The middle-aged man pumping gas into his SUV at the pump in front of me didn’t look like a Latin scholar. But his large tattoo opened up a way of conversation on this quite warm early autumn day. No, he answered my query, he was not a student of an ancient language, but rather more of a Roman historian. Since his retirement from the medical profession, he now pursues his lifelong passion of studying the Caesars and their entourage.
Schools for Ordinary Times
In the weeks of mid-autumn, when colors fill the trees and crisp air fills the evenings, advertisements for high schools and colleges fill the pages of diocesan newspapers as 8th graders and 12th graders try to select the place they will call home for the next four years.