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Opinions / Columnists / Christina Capecchi
  • christina-capecchi-150

    Start 2019 with self-care

    I’ve always appreciated the notion of self-care in an Oprah Winfrey, hot-baths-and-expensive-chocolates kind of way. 

    ... More

    1/24/19
    Christina Capecchi | For the Catholic Herald
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    This side of heaven

    My aunt Jan has always known she was adopted, and the many mysteries surrounding that reality had never haunted her. She raised her daughters near St. Paul, Minn., her husband’s hometown, and cherished her Catholic faith. Now 56, she is an empty nester who volunteers often and paints religious icons.

    ... More

    12/6/18
    Christina Capecchi

    Seeing the best at the worst of times

    The Lopers finalized their adoption at a Sept. 5 court hearing and embarked on a protracted flight home. On the morning of Sept. 11, they were on their last leg, hours from Texas, when the pilot re-routed them to a town they had never heard of: Gander, Newfoundland. They were told something vague about the U.S. airspace being closed.

    ... More

    10/31/18
    Christina Capecchi
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    Breaking up with your phone

    I’ve been emailing my friend Becky, a newspaper editor in South Dakota, about our growing desire to unplug.

    ... More

    9/13/18
    Christina Capecchi | For the Catholic Herald
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    Finding beauty in the backyard

    Janet Easter is experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions as she arranges a bouquet in her backyard, and she is unfazed. 

     

    ... More

    8/3/18
    Christina Capecchi
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    Remember our past

    The numbers don’t look good for the U.S. Postal Service. 

    ... More

    7/25/18
    Christina Capecchi | For the Catholic Herald

    The poetry and pro-life power of baby names

    The big news from the Social Security Administration is the ousting of a champion: Liam has dethroned Noah as the nation’s most popular boy name. 

    ... More

    6/15/18
    Christina Capecchi
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    Telling our stories and knowing for sure

    When Oprah Winfrey was first asked the question, the talk-show queen was left tongue-tied.

     

    ... More

    5/1/18
    Christina Capecchi | For the Catholic Herald
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    The art of slow living

    Erica Tighe was 26 when she made the leap. She would set out on her own to be a calligrapher — full time — in order to pay her $800 rent and cellphone bill and $1,000 college-loan payment and also hopefully afford some food.

     

    ... More

    4/4/18
    Christina Capecchi | For the Catholic Herald
    christina-capecchi-150

    Learning from the Angel of the Gap

    Little did he know what a noble purpose awaited him when Don Ritchie settled into a house on Old South Head Road back in 1964.... More

    3/1/18
    Christina Capecchi | For the Catholic Herald
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    Waltzing on ice

    When it came time to interview prospective sailors for his expedition across Antarctica, Ernest Shackleton had clear-cut criteria. He had to pick the right men for his journey to the bottom of the world, a news-making attempt to be the first to cross the continent via the coldest place on Earth: the South Pole.

     

    ... More

    2/1/18
    Christina Capecchi
    SQ_LR_Advent-wreath-2017-17

    The challenge of Advent

    If you want Advent to remake your heart — to stretch it out like pizza dough and squish it back into something soft and supple — you must make the time for real giving, for glitter and glue and hours and minutes. 

    ... More

    12/8/17
    Christina Capecchi
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    No baby but still giving thanks

    Even before she was married, Emily Stimpson Chapman asked for baby prayers.

    ... More

    11/7/17
    Christina Capecchi
    christina-capecchi-150

    Hurricane Harvey and the kayaking priest

    Hurricane Harvey stranded Father David Bergeron in his pick-up truck the night it ripped through Houston. The 38-year-old priest had been visiting his brother and had to pull over on an overpass three miles from his home in the flood-ravaged southeast side.

    ... More

    10/4/17
    Christina Capecchi
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    Evangelization and the solar eclipse

    The rain fell heavy Monday morning in Des Moines, Iowa.

    ... More

    8/31/17
    Christina Capecchi
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    Priest holes and history lessons

    Nicholas Owen was canonized 364 years after his death. Such is often the case with the Catholic Church, charged with curating a 3,000-year treasure trove of saints and stories, rovers and relics.

    ... More

    8/2/17
    Christina Capecchi | For the Catholic Herald
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    History and humility: an old man’s plea to young adults

    David McCullough’s bestselling new book, The American Spirit, takes up a cause he has long championed, lends it added urgency and aims it squarely at young adults. “We are raising a generation of young Americans who are by and large historically illiterate,” McCullough writes.

    ... More

    7/5/17
    Christina Capecchi
    christina-capecchi-150

    ‘Let your yes mean yes’

    Rachel Gardner has a bad habit: She says yes when she ought to say no. A friend will ask to do lunch on Wednesday.

    ... More

    5/31/17
    Christina Capecchi
    christina-capecchi-150

    A big win for the little guy

    Art Cullen’s series of Pulitzer-winning editorials took on powerful agricultural groups for allowing nitrogen runoff to pollute Iowa rivers. 

    ... More

    5/4/17
    Christina Capecchi
    christina-capecchi-150

    Evangelization by hitchhiking

    The place where infants nod off and teens open up is also where road-weary adults will probe their spirituality: in the car.

    ... More

    4/5/17
    Christina Capecchi
    christina-capecchi-150

    Cultivating a life

    The old farmers used to say you should leave a field better than you found it. Sometimes that called for heavy lifting. Other times it just meant picking up a rock as you crossed and placing it at the field’s edge.

    ... More

    3/1/17
    Christina Capecchi
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    Helping leads to healing

    Spend a day in a surgery waiting room and you’ll witness a hundred quiet acts of mercy.

    ... More

    2/1/17
    Christina Capecchi
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    Resilience and hope

    Adversity begets longevity. 

    ... More

    1/5/17
    Christina Capecchi
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    Prayer box taps into spiritual hunger

    The box went up on a Monday evening in August, a plain white box nestled inside a little wooden tent, mounted atop a fence and beneath the outermost reach of a maple tree.

    ... More

    11/30/16
    Christina Capecchi

    Prayer box taps into spiritual hunger

    Keanu Krech didn’t know what to expect when he set up a prayer box — a twist on a Little Free Library — outside his home. 

    ... More

    11/29/16
    Christina Capecchi
    christina-capecchi-150

    A cure for election overload

    It’s almost as if November’s Mass readings were written for election-weary Catholics, with their foreboding tones and calls for “perseverance” and “endurance” amid distress.

    ... More

    11/2/16
    Christina Capecchi | Catholic Herald

    Listening at keyholes

    ... More

    10/17/16
    Christina Capecchi
    christina-capecchi-150

    Finding unity in the Olympic spirit

    It was a rough July, on a national scale, marked by division: shootings, protests, funerals, conventions.

    ... More

    9/30/16
    Christina Capecchi

    Humble leaders: George Washington and Pope Benedict

    I've been listening to Lillian Cunningham's "Presidential" podcast, trying to glean insights into our nation's earliest leaders. In a month that is sure to contain fireworks - from the 4th of July to the Republican and Democratic conventions - it feels quieting and introspective to cast my mind back to our first presidents.

    ... More

    7/12/16
    Christina Capecchi

    To bake is to believe: A convert in the kitchen

    Staci Perry bakes like she lives. She doesn't measure. She works with what's already in the fridge. And she scrapes every last bit out of the bowl.

    ... More

    5/31/16
    Christina Capecchi

    The ‘Francis effect’ on wedding planning

    It had been a long Thursday, and Brooke Paris couldn't wait to take off her heels, peel off her contacts and wipe off her make-up. She changed into her pajamas, climbed into bed and opened her MacBook to the pope's new apostolic exhortation.

    ... More

    5/10/16
    CHRISTINA CAPECCHI

    Priest comforted the shipwrecked aboard the Titanic

    Father Thomas Byles was 42 when he boarded the Titanic with his second-class ticket and portable altar stone. He had made arrangements with Captain Edward Smith to secure space on the ocean liner to celebrate Mass. Even on vacation a priest is never off duty, he knew, but the Catholic convert would have it no other way.

    ... More

    4/14/16
    Christina Capecchi
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    The nun who kissed Elvis

    Dolores Hart was 19 when she filmed her first movie scene: kissing Elvis Presley.

    ... More

    3/7/16
    Christina Capecchi

    Instagram envy

    Melina Birchem has uploaded 777 images to her Instagram account over the past two years: sushi, Starbucks, her new tattoo, rosary beads, cowboy boots. Sometimes the juxtaposition is jarring. A glowing monstrance, a chilled margarita. A snapshot from waitressing, a prayer journal documenting her consecration to the Blessed Mother.

    ... More

    2/3/16
    Christina Capecchi

    One heroic minute at a time

    Oprah Winfrey has joined Weight Watchers, which means she is not only a card-carrying, point-counting member of the weight-loss club, she is also a part owner. That's how you do it when you're Oprah: You go big or you don't bother.

    ... More

    1/12/16
    Christina Capecchi

    No reality TV show

    The wedding that Tyler Schwandt and his fiancee are planning could've been broadcast on national TV. But he's perfectly content with a quieter, more intimate wedding Mass.

    ... More

    12/2/15
    Christina Capecchi

    Searching for peace with help from a sage

    It is the book that somehow surfaces when you need it most - manna for the multi-tasker, solace for the stressed. It is the book you stock up on to give to others, to slip in Christmas stockings, to pay it forward. It is the book that spiritual directors recommend again and again: Father Jacques Philippe's tiny paperback with the nondescript cover, the one that delivers everything its title promises: Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart.

    ... More

    11/10/15
    Christina Capecchi

    Asking questions

    I'm reading a book that speaks to me as a journalist, Brian Grazer's 2015 release A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life. In it, the 64-year-old Emmy-winning movie producer recounts his practice of conducting "curiosity conversations" twice a month for the past three decades to fill up his knowledge reserve and walk in someone else's head.

    ... More

    9/29/15
    Christina Capecchi

    Waiting for a husband, keeping the faith

    Arleen Spenceley can't remember the last time she went on a date. It must've been 2014, she says without a trace of panic.

    ... More

    8/21/15
    Christina Capecchi

    The call of the birds

    "The only essential equipment for seeing birds is a pair of eyes. Good ears are a help, too."

    ... More

    6/3/15
    CHRISTINA CAPECCHI

    Winning big

    On Sunday night the email landed in Mike Foss' inbox: He had been named to Forbes' "30 Under 30," the business magazine's annual list of rising stars younger than 30.

    ... More

    5/6/15
    Christina Capecchi

    The accumulation problem

    Carly Poppalardo had blisters on her feet after she drove home from an eight-hour session of professional organizing, threw a bag of Trader Joe's pre-cut veggies and simmer sauce on the stove, flipped on "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" and sank into the couch.

    ... More

    4/1/15
    Christina Capecchi
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    The hidden lives of Catholic sisters

    Belinda Monahan has analyzed more than 100,000 animal bones in Armenia dating back from the Early Bronze Age (1200 BC) to the Medieval period.

    ... More

    3/3/15
    Christina Capecchi

    Courage and conviction

    Irena Sendler was 29 years old when Nazi tanks slithered into Warsaw, casting a shadow of fear over the town and slicing it apart with a walled-off ghetto for the Jewish residents.

    ... More

    2/3/15
    Christina Capecchi

    An epic love story

    It had an echo of Nicholas Sparks to it, but it was real life, and the story went viral: An Ohio couple married for 73 years died just 28 hours apart.

    ... More

    1/8/15
    Christina Capecchi

    Self-reflection in the age of selfies

    "Lena Dunham is not done confessing."

    ... More

    9/30/14
    Christina Capecchi
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  • COLUMNIST BIO

    Christina Capecchi
    Christina Capecchi
    Christina Capecchi is a recent graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. She is the author of the young adult column "Twenty Something," which runs in diocesan papers around the country.
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