As Ireland prepares for an August visit by Pope Francis, her people are locked in a life and death struggle with the Catholic Church. In a country that is perhaps the most Catholic of any nation in the world, some estimates show that while well over 90% of Ireland’s citizens identify with the church of […]
Frequently, when I speak to groups about death and dying, people will share their own stories of loss. At a recent event, a woman came up to me with tears running down her face, to talk about her daughter who had died by suicide. She had been raised as a Catholic, with the idea that […]
Pick up the paper or turn on the TV, and we hear of another mass shooting. It seems as if some Americans are steeped in rage, and we look on in horror. What can we do? How can we help? Our initial reaction may be to pray for those in mourning and hope that it never happens […]
Mothers make great sacrifices for their children, that is widely known. That they are often the gateway to sainthood perhaps less so, and yet, behind every great saint (to steal a phrase), is likely to be an attentive mother. Fr. Christy David Pathiala would probably agree. He speaks of his own mother with great reverence, […]
Meeting a Future Saint In the 80s, my husband Cliff, a news photographer and reporter, accompanied Bismarck, ND Catholic Bishop John Kinney to Rome to record his five-year Ad-Limina visit, which is an obligation of church hierarchy to visit the tombs of the apostles, and to meet with the pope, in this case, Pope John […]
There’s a famous story in St. Augustine’s Confessions in which he and a group of youngsters looking for mischief steal pears, just for the thrill of the theft: We carried off a huge load of pears, not to eat ourselves, but to dump out to the hogs, after barely tasting some of them ourselves. Doing this […]
The Rev. Billy Graham had a simple message–give your life to Jesus. And that’s exactly what he did. He may have counseled presidents, he may have been the first religious leader to lie in state in the nation’s Capitol, he may have founded a media dynasty, but he always knew who he was. In many […]
Hurricanes, earthquakes, terrorist threats, mass shootings – if you watch the news these days you could be tempted to go hide under the bed. These events bring on talk of the end times that we are warned about in the New Testament. The apostles expected Jesus to return at any moment, though He told them […]
