Blogs
-
We’re under siege here in Boston, where 53 inches of snow has fallen so far this winter (including more than 40 inches in one record-shattering week).
-
Fr. Robert Barron, founder of Word on Fire and creator of the impressive Catholicism series, a few days ago published an essay expressing the impact that Thomas Merton's writings exerted on his (Fr. Barron's) interest in religious life. Fr. Barron says that Merton "had a decisive influence on me and my vocation to the priesthood."
-
In a new and important initiative aimed at protecting minors from sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, eliminating all such abuse and assisting the victims of past abuse, Pope Francis has sent a letter to the Presidents of the Bishops Conferences and the Superiors of the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life asking for their “close and complete cooperation” with the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors that he set up in March 2014.
-
Catholic San Francisco, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, profiled the Society of Jesus in its latest issue, providing some good historical information. A snippet:
-
Archbishop Oscar Romero “is a martyr of the Church of the Second Vatican Council. In killing him, they wanted to hit the Church that flowed from the Second Vatican Council,” Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the postulator of his cause for beatification, told a press briefing in the Vatican on February 4.
-
Pope Francis’s daily homilies offer spiritual nuggets. He offered one sleeper on January 26 when he said that it is women who transmit the faith. The concept has been offered before, but sometimes it has seemed to be a mere platitude to appease women who may feel underappreciated in the church. I think it is more.
-
There is nothing more American than the anti-vaccination movement. This is a country that finds Hannibal Lecter endearing because he ate a census taker with some fava beans. Refusing the slightest demands from society is our birthright.
-
Father John Lager, O.F.M. Cap., has been the National Chaplain of FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) since September 2013. He previously served the Capuchins as vocation director, associate pastor, high school campus minister and as the order's...
-
Those serene-looking saints we see depicted in those plaster (or wooden) figurines on exquisite pedestals in our churches can be very deceiving. Looking at their calm demeanor on their fine-crafted faces can lull one into thinking that the sainthood process is a rather placid affair: a sudden expression, an outburst of holiness and then sainthood is conferred and declared and a feast day is entered onto the universal church calendar and everybody is happy.
-
Sometimes I'm asked to recommend a Bible, one that provides an accurate translation along with helpful annotations that illuminate the complexities of the stories and text.