I realized a while ago that debates are pointless. All they do is try to prove the other person wrong rather than bring about greater knowledge of the good. Think about it – the nature of a debate is to locate the weakness in a person’s argument so that you can exploit it to the […]
Are you in need of some daily inspiration? Do you love to learn about the saints? If you answered “yes” to either of those questions, then Sisterhood of Saints by Melanie Rigney (Franciscan Media, 2013) is a book you will want to keep close by. Rigney writes that researching all these women changed her life. […]
Last week marked 50 years since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his seminal “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Fifty years ago, if someone had told the audience assembled at the National Mall that they would see a black man elected President in their lifetime, […]
ST. ROSALIA was daughter of a noble family descended from Charlemagne. She was born at Palermo in Sicily, and despising in her youth worldly vanities, made herself an abode in a cave on Mount Pelegrino, three miles from Palermo, where she completed the sacrifice of her heart to God by austere penance and manual labor, […]
We talk a lot about technology in the New Evangelization, and rightly so: “The commemoration of this half millennium of evangelization will have full significance if, as bishops, with your priests and faithful, you accept it as your commitment; a commitment not of re-evangelization, but rather of a new evangelization; new in its ardour, methods and […]
There’s a dangerous tendency in America today to view disabilities of various kinds as insuperable barriers to productive and loving service. There is often an implicit, and sometimes explicit, disrespect of a basic feature of human dignity in the treatment of those with disabilities as merely passive recipients of government aid, the objects of public […]
When the sun sets on September 4th, the Jewish year moves from 5773 to 5774. Jews follow a calendar that is unlike the Gregorian calendar we follow in which September 5th will still find us in the year 2013. For Jews, the calendar is essentially a lunar calendar so that it can best reflect the […]
A great opportunity to share the Catholic faith with Protestants is when they bring up the ceremony that they call ‘Baby Dedication’. This is a ceremony in which the child’s parents, and sometimes their entire family (usually grandparents), make a public pronouncement and commitment before the Lord to raise their child to serve God, according […]
For most women when the buzzing alarm goes off in the morning, it isn’t because farm chores await completion and the baking of a hearty breakfast beckons. That’s someone else’s story. Instead, most likely, eyes peel open in order to face the daily grind—coffee, a commute, and a cubical. These days, there is more and […]
Ten years ago, I would never have guessed I would be on Facebook. The internet age has provided us a way to communicate with others all over the world. When I first joined Facebook I assumed it would be a way to see family pictures of grandkids and that’s about all, but I have found […]
Years ago, a caller asked a radio host what to do regarding her father. He wasn’t around while she was growing up, and his absenteeism hadn’t changed now that she was an adult. Despite his caring words on the phone, he wouldn’t actually follow through by visiting his daughter in person. The distraught daughter called […]
Francoise Baylis, a professor in Bioethics and Philosophy in Canada, has an important piece out on the Quebec law that pays for up to three IVF cycles out of the state-funded public health system. I wrote about this bad decision when Quebec passed the law in 2010. Is it working? Sort of. IVF cycles in […]
At 8:00 a.m. last Thursday, a team of 20 social workers, police officers, and special agents stormed a homeschooling family’s residence near Darmstadt, Germany, forcibly removing all four of the family’s children (ages 7–14). The sole grounds for removal were that the parents, Dirk and Petra Wunderlich, continued to homeschool their children in defiance of […]
“Do you fast? Then feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit the sick, do not forget the imprisoned, have pity on the tortured, comfort those who grieve and who weep, be merciful, humble, kind, calm, patient, sympathetic, forgiving, reverent, truthful and pious, so that God might accept your fasting and might plentifully grant […]
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Hello! Today, dear brothers and sisters, I wish to add my voice to the cry which rises up with increasing anguish from every part of the world, from every people, from the heart of each person, from the one great family which is humanity: it is the cry for peace! It […]
I drove through my old neighborhood last week. It is like many suburban neighborhoods that sprouted up in the 1960s. Many of the people who moved there grew up in the city. All of them wanted big yards in which their kids could play. Many wanted to be near St. Germaine Catholic Church and its […]
Triple Sisters Summer leaves already flying, Autumn in a rush this year, Yellow foliage is dying, What’s the season that draws near? August maybe or September Downward, onward swiftly falling, That which nothing holy hinders Equinoctial and appalling Who are we? The triple sisters Past and present, future claim, Threads of history the scissors Cut […]
