By Russell Shaw
The news that Pope Francis has set in motion the planning for a synod of bishops of the Amazon region next year may not strike most U.S. Catholics as a matter of great interest.
4/19/18
Reading Time
3
min
By Effie Caldarola
This year's Earth Day theme is "End Plastic Pollution," and I discovered that Ireland, progressive little country that it is, had passed a plastic bag tax in 2002. It was then I realized I hadn't seen any plastic bags in Ireland.
4/17/18
Reading Time
3
min
By Paul Senz
Even before the time of Christ, Aristotle wrote beautifully on the subject of friendship. Many are familiar with a phrase of his composing, a friend is "a single soul in two bodies." Theological inaccuracies notwithstanding, it is an intriguing observation.
4/11/18
Reading Time
4
min
By Elizabeth Foss
When you say that you don’t have time to go to Mass, or you won’t go because don’t like the parish or the music bothers you, what you are saying is that you’d literally rather not receive Our Lord who offers his act of love to you personally than go to a Mass that doesn’t meet your ideal. Jesus wants you, but you’d rather leave him at the altar than to go under whatever circumstances he’s offering.
4/11/18
Reading Time
3
min
By Mary Beth Bonacci
I don’t know what the Holy Father actually said in his most recent conversation with Eugenio Scalfari, but Scalfari’s reconstruction has the pope strongly implying that hell does not exist — that the souls of the damned simply cease to exist at the moment of death.
4/11/18
Reading Time
3
min
By Carolee Pastorius
Russell Shaw’s article outlining his views on the American way of life with regard to secularism went off track with regard to Billy Graham. I grew up as a Christian Scientist and, in college, went to a Billy Graham revival. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior at that time. This began my journey […]
4/6/18
Reading Time
1
min
By Marge Fenelon
There are many notable things about the life and papacy of St. John Paul II, but the most notable is his devotion to divine mercy.
4/4/18
Reading Time
2
min
By Christina Capecchi
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.
4/4/18
Reading Time
3
min
“Here in Sweden,” an old friend emailed me recently, “a true Christian is a curiosity, but the upshot is that there’s no point to fake it.”
4/4/18
Reading Time
3
min
It’s true what they said about me
The “two disciples” who begin our passage today have just made their eager trek back into Jerusalem to recount the “goings on” of their trek out of Jerusalem on Emmaus Road (a good album name?). As we know (from the verses preceding today’s passage), Jesus joined them and spoke with them for a long part of their journey, all the while either preventing them from recognizing him or deciding not to interrupt their kilometers-long blindness — a blindness resistant to the heart-inflaming truths He expressed about himself in Scripture. Could there possibly be a better Scripture class than this one was?