Author: Ellie Harty

This Sunday the Community of Mary Magdalene in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania will celebrate (via Zoom) the gifts of this amazing benefactor/saint to our lives with a mass with readings from the lost apocryphal text, Gospel of Mary. At the end of Mass, we will have the pleasure of honoring Dr. Shannen Dee Williams with the…
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Does this scene seem familiar? Marie (not her real name), a white woman sitting close enough to touch me, reached out, took my arm and said to me, “Inez, when I see you, I do not see color. I just see your beautiful soul.” Crash! My face must have shown what I was feeling, because…
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I had never heard the phrase “opportunity hoarding” before, and I had no idea that I had been, and maybe still am, doing just that. Oh, when I first heard the phrase, I could easily see how the Church hierarchy had definitely been hoarding opportunities – forever – and grew rather self-righteous and puffed up…
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I am trying to do the “homework on white privilege” that so many African-American leaders, writers, clergy, activists, citizens are advocating. I had done some of the work before as part of our parish’s racial healing initiative which had us reading the literature, meeting weekly in small racial healing groups, and trying to learn, grow,…
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If you are a homeowner in Great Britain, you are entitled to live under the English Common Law Principle of “Ancient Lights”, i.e. you have the “right to unobstructed passage of light and air from adjoining land if you have had uninterrupted use of the lights for twenty years.” The Irish author, John Banville, put…
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Before this past weekend, I had sent in a totally different post for today’s The Table.Then I watched my own city ravaged by an understandable, justifiable, and yet horrificanger. I do not know how to express how sorry and sorrowful I am. I think Shannen Dee Williams, assistant professor of history at Villanova University andauthor…
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Recently I became a vegetarian. Big deal, you might think, especially if you have been vegetarian or vegan for a long time or all of your life. Oh no, you might think, not one of those people especially if you’ve been a lifetime devotee of the ‘food chain’ justification of meat-eating or just continued enjoyment…
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I am writing during “Laudato Si’ Week”, the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis’ encyclical letter: “On Care for Our Common Home”.  This particular encyclical made me proud to be Catholic (instead of a confusing mixture of semi-lapsed, semi-faithful) and grateful to have a Pope, if only to give us someone as a world-recognized spokesperson with…
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Sometimes I am at a loss about what to write. Either I’m at that emptied out phase or too full to even process everything storming at us and through us. So many others I’ve talked with seem to feel the same. What is there to say? About our world?  About our lives?  Even about women’s…
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In these trying days, I thought I’d start with the “humiliation” (at my own expense) part to give us a few laughs and something to muse on not related to current viral or political happenings. Then I’ll add the more serious bits. Below is a picture of me – on the right – about to…
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