The National Catholic Review

Generation Faith

  • July 7-14, 2014

    Some months ago, in honor of Black Catholic History Month, I was asked to speak to my parish about what it means to me to be black and Catholic. While honored, I must admit I felt a little overwhelmed. The request could not have come at a busier time for me. I had just finished four straight nights performing in my school’s fall production of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a play about Tom Robinson, a character who is wrongfully and unjustly accused of a crime...

  • May 19, 2014

    It is 8 a.m. Monday, time for morning prayer. The principal comes on the loud speaker, her voice especially shaky. Everyone knows. Still, I tense up when she says, “Students, come meet me in the gym.” My class gets up and we go. No one in the halls dares to speak one word.

  • May 12, 2014

    When I started high school at Walsh Jesuit in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, I was pretty sure I had the whole religion thing down. I grew up in a Catholic family and had attended Catholic schools since kindergarten. I went to Mass every weekend and on holy days, had taken religion classes every day for years and witnessed examples of a strong faith among my family members. What more was there to learn?

  • October 7, 2013

    I’m a teenage drummer interested in interfaith work. When I recently combined these interests, I found myself on a journey of discovery that taught me about the nature of interfaith dialogue and my own Catholic faith.

  • September 9-16, 2013

    As the summer of my senior year of high school drew to an end, the inevitable separation approached: I was about to venture into the world on my own, bidding my family a goodbye vastly different from the routine “see ya” exchanged before school each morning. Along with the usual changes resulting from moving to college, this transition brought the additional responsibility of practicing my faith independent of family.

  • July 15-22, 2013

    One special thing about me is that I have Down syndrome. Down syndrome means having an extra chromosome in my body. It’s the way I was born. My parents told me that when I was born on Aug. 9, 1995, the doctor looked at my hands and eyes and confirmed that I had Down syndrome. This was not a surprise to my mom and dad because they knew I was going to have Down syndrome. That’s because of a test that had been done before I was born.

  • July 15-22, 2013

    The grandest and most spectacular acts of social justice often seem to occur in foreign lands and involve the improvement and preservation of thousands of lives, but the most meaningful act of social justice in my own life occurred much closer to home. It succeeded in saving the life of only one.