I have wanted to write about seminaries for a long time, but there always seems to be something else. Then this week, NCR announced a series to answer these questions: “How are priests being formed? Who is teaching them? How are seminaries adapting to the new wave of abuse crises and condemnation of clericalism from…
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I’m not very good at the contemplative “time-out” in life. I’ve tried but have never been able to meditate in any frequent or ordered way. I want action, I say to myself. I want us to get out there and work for justice, march for peace, witness for inclusion and equality, not just sit around…
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Last week, I could not cope with Pope Francis’s letter to the United States bishops as they began a weeklong retreat in Chicago. Why did he think they should pray together because of a “crisis of credibility”? To repent of the sin of disunity, as I read it. This is vastly different from repenting for…
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How rich the Church would be if only the blessed gifts outlined by poet, Jan Richardson below – and so many, many more that you could name – from all genders – were permitted. I’m not telling you here anything you don’t already know, but sometimes, I think, in this week of the celebration of…
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“Peace on the earth, good will to all.” Is that what you are singing as this Christmas season comes to a close? My intentional Eucharistic community thought that we were so revolutionary to use “all” and then Judy Heffernan discovered that they made the same change, replacing “men,” in a Philadelphia parish church. But our…
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I love this Leonard Cohen song, presented here as a poem. It is both a realistic and hopeful take on the future – and on our mission for peace and justice. As he says, “They’re going to hear from me”… and from all of us.   Happy New Year! Anthem By Leonard Cohen The birds they…
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Staying ‘because it’s our church, too’ had come to feel like complicity by another name. And even staying for the Eucharist made me wonder at what point I had to stop letting the hierarchy use the real presence to excuse the inexcusable. Does Jesus ever feel like he’s being held hostage? (Melinda Henneberger’s “Why I…
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IN THIS HOLY SEASON                IN HER HOLY VOICE       WHAT WOULD MARY SAY?     WHAT WOULD MARY DO?                                  

Publicity surrounding the Synod on Youth and Vocational Discernment this past October highlighted the very slight role that laity have in decision-making in the Church and the growing awareness that change is sorely needed. As part of the reaction, Massimo Faggioli, professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University, wrote an article in Commonweal…
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Sometimes it’s just better to be simple, to state the obvious, in this week before the celebration of the birth of Christ:  We all remember and rejoice that, within her self on that great birth day, Mary literally transubstantiated bread and wine into body and blood to create her son – many believe – the…
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