Catholic Herald Acting Editor
Does the Catholic Church have a right to follow its convictions about sexual morality in its own institutions without being penalized by government? In its June decision declaring “gay” and “transgender” to be protected categories under federal law barring sex-based discrimination, the Supreme Court left that question unanswered.More
It’s another morning in forever-COVID-19 world, and I am trying to call the family from all corners of the house and yard to morning prayer. We’ve all been up for a few hours, and the washing machine upstairs just entered spin cycle, adding a pleasant, audible sense of momentum to the morning. The moment is right. More
Fifteen years after Richard Louv’s bestseller “The Last Child in the Woods” was published, it is more relevant than ever. I’m fascinated by his insights on the “nature-deficit disorder” ailing kids. More
We are weary. We are discouraged. We are looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, almost certain that, in the context of 2020, when we see it, it will be an oncoming train. Hope wanes. And when hope wanes, faith falters and love struggles against indifference. Did I mention yet that we are on the brink of election season? We’re in a world of hurt, and we need to shore ourselves up for the storm set to crash upon an already battered, badly eroded beach.More
Disappointed pro-lifers were predictably angry at Chief Justice John Roberts for providing the fifth vote in the five-member Supreme Court majority that last month struck down a Louisiana law requiring doctors who do abortions to meet one mildly restrictive prescription. It was no surprise that the court’s four liberals — Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer (who wrote the opinion), Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — voted as they did, but Roberts, a conservative, came as a shock.More
I spent a few hours in utter frustration several days ago. The goal planner that I’d so carefully tucked into a very specific drawer before the packers came was nowhere to be found. At the last minute, our movers canceled and new movers were hired. The first movers had advised us not to empty drawers; they’d move with contents intact. The newly hired movers took everything out of drawers and put them in boxes — so many boxes. And my place to sketch out goals and dreams and to journal my way through the year still has not been found.More
Not long after coming to power in 1933, the German government headed by Adolf Hitler sought a formal agreement with the Holy See — a concordat setting terms of the church-state relationship. No sooner was the concordat in place, however, than the Nazis began violating it, prompting dozens of formal protests from the Vatican.More
Tonight I wrote two events on my calendar: a birthday party and a baptism. More