Category: catholic news

Okay, I’m a grandma, so please bear with me! I think this grandchild-being-irresistably-funny anecdote does have a point for us. No, trust me, really. My two year old grandson was being potty trained and doing quite well, thank you. One day, he and his family were at a restaurant. Mom denied him some treat and…
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Do you know what I did yesterday instead of writing this blog? I went to the Philadelphia parade for the Villanova basketball team, who had just won the NCAA men’s championship. Even if you don’t follow college athletics, you probably saw pictures of Sister Jean, Loyola of Chicago’s chaplain. The Catholic factor was prominent in…
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I used to discount the stories of the saints in my Roman Catholic upbringing, but a couple of times this week I am reminded that they are not only our inheritance. New Yorker writer Rebecca Mead pulled out an image this week to write about the March for Our Lives.The silent, head-shaven Emma Gonzalez reminded…
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I was not going to write about this article by Ross Douthat, published on the front page of Sunday’s New York Times “Currents” section.  But half the page is such a beautiful photo I cannot resist. Pope Francis is facing the Holy Door of St. Peter’s, his hands on two bronze panels with Latin inscriptions.…
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Well, it’s not quite that bad. But it’s a bad situation. You may think it’s just in your parish, but it’s not only there. Just last week, a new book was published in Italy and Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, wrote the preface. Rita Ferrone in Commonweal…
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Living alone, I read during breakfast. During Lent and Advent, I read the PaxChristiUSA reflections. For Thursday this week, the scripture verse is “Tend to the Flock of God in our midst.” 1 Peter 5:2. Brayton Shanley of the Agape community writes about college student interns searching for deeper meaning as parents and schools stress occupational…
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“Winning the battle, losing the war” became the frame for this post at a performance to celebrate the Chinese New Year on Valentine’s Day/Ash Wednesday. Watching this talented family of immigrants perform their traditional music, I realized that the lunar New Year is called “Tet” in Vietnam. The Tet Offensive in 1968 was the turning…
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I am indebted to Simone Campbell for this week’s theme, courtesy of Marian Ronan. In The Georgetown Voice, the ever-revolutionary Campbell “then took audience questions, leading to a profession of her personal ‘heresy,’ her belief that women can and should be ordained. “’Ordination is an extension of baptism, and there are different kinds of baptism……
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I know everywhere we look there is something wearying. I’m not even going to mention any examples. You know what they are and where they are. In spring, summer, and fall, we can bury the discontent and weariness we feel in all the bursts of life and color and activity around us. In winter, we’re…
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What am I reading this week? Of course, the great novel by Leo Tolstoy. How do I relate it to the data collected about Catholic women that I wrote about two weeks ago? Marriage, Love, and Children, three topics I did not cover then. The 96-page study published by the Center for Applied Research in…
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