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Columns

Our culture of death

By Greg Erlandson
On Nov. 14, Kevin Janson Neal paced about a remote elementary school in the small Northern California community of Rancho Tehama Reserve, apparently looking for children to shoot during a killing spree that left five dead and at least 10 wounded in seven different locations.   Thanks to the quick actions of a school secretary, […]
11/22/17
Reading Time 3 min

Why poetry matters

By John Garvey
Richard Wilbur died last month. He was, Dana Gioia said, the finest poet of his generation and the greatest American Christian poet since Eliot.    Here’s an example of why I liked him so much. It is part of a toast he gave at his eldest son’s wedding. (I recited it at the marriage of […]
11/22/17
Reading Time 3 min

The pope asked for this day

By Ann M. Augherton

So what happened when the pope said he wanted to focus on the world’s poor? He decided one day each year should be set aside to encourage all of us to “Love not in word, but in deed?”

 That day, Nov. 19, will be the inaugural World Day of the Poor.

11/15/17
Reading Time 2 min

God gathers the brokenhearted

By Elizabeth Foss
She sits with shoulders slumped and looks at me, eyes bright with tears. After growing up in the church and marrying in the church and promising to raise her child in the church, she’s finished with the church. Actually, she says, she’s finished with God. She grew up believing that God was good and the […]
11/15/17
Reading Time 3 min

Your prayers are being heard

By Mary Beth Bonacci

By the time you read this, All Saints Day will have come and gone. But, just to extend the feast a few more days, I want to share the story of something that happened to me recently — something that helped give me a fuller understanding of what we’re celebrating, and what we as Catholics believe about the Communion of Saints.

11/15/17
Reading Time 4 min

Paradise lost

By Fr. Stanley Krempa

Our readings today give us three examples of life in imperfect situations. 

11/14/17
Reading Time 3 min

Catholic heritage celebrated in style in France

By Ann M. Augherton

I found myself seated at one of two long dining tables set with Limoges china, silver knife rests, crystal glassware and candlesticks that looked like something out of the Disney movie “Beauty and the Beast.” 

11/9/17
Reading Time 2 min

From Siege2Surge: Mess

By Soren Johnson
“An army is a team,” General George S. Patton Jr. told the Third Army on June 5, 1944, the eve of the D-Day invasion. “It lives, eats, sleeps and fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is (feel free to Google it).”   Patton minces no words about your next and 4th Standard Operating […]
11/8/17
Reading Time 3 min

A call for intergenerational solidarity

By Elise Italiano
I can still feel the thick plastic cover over the checkered tablecloths under my fingers, still smell the faint aroma of almond extract mixed with something like mothballs in my nose. The week leading up to Christmas was the same every year of my childhood. In less than 24 hours, my brother and I made […]
11/8/17
Reading Time 3 min

A tale of two popes

By Greg Erlandson
There’s a quote attributed, probably falsely, to Mark Twain that observes, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”   I suppose it is a sign that I’m getting older, because I’m starting to hear the rhymes in a lot of the current debates in the church about papal leadership. Almost 40 years ago, a […]
11/8/17
Reading Time 3 min

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