I’ve been thinking, recently, about the impact of bad priests on the Church. No, not on the Church – but on the lives of particular members of the Church, on the family and friends who have encountered them, who have…
Bad Priests
Your Family Feast Days
The Catholic Church has taught that salvation is an ongoing process. St. Paul, for example, uses past, present, and future tense at different points (c.f. Rom 8:24, 2 Cor 2:15, Rom 5:9). We have been saved, in the past, by…
Reconciling Love and Justice
Psalm 145:8-9 tells us that “the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness. The Lord is good to all and compassionate toward all his works.” Does this mean that God will forgive anything? He is…
Trusting God: An Interview with Connie Rossini
I recently had a chance to interview Connie Rossini, author of Five Lessons from the Carmelite Saints that will Change Your Life and Trusting God with St. Therese. She lived for many years as a secular member of the Discalced…
Smells & Bells
A common poor joke during my childhood was the “Catholic aerobics” we did at Mass: stand up-sit down-kneel-stand up-sit down-kneel. Now, I know that each posture has a meaning: we stand for the Gospel because it is Jesus speaking to…
Passing Time, Using Time
Summer is a good time to think about time. Some summer days, time seems to fly by and before we know it, the day is done. On others, time seems to crawl as we struggle to finish a project, or…
This is My Body
We value very greatly our God-given rights. Some of these were enumerated beautifully in the U.S. Declaration of Independence. We value life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Jesus was – is – truly man, as well as truly God,…
God’s Chiseling
Every saint has a different story. One never hears a saint’s story and says, “this person was exactly like saint so-and-so”. (Saint So-and-So – the patron of people that forget names.) They’re all different, including in the time it took…
One Ark, One Captain
Darren Aronofsky’s Noah movie seems to be doing well in theaters, and with some Catholic critics, even if it didn’t get the papal thumbs-up they’d hoped for. To my knowledge, churchmen aren’t in the habit of making sponsorship deals–though I…
The Eyes of Love
How can this blemished church be Christ’s Church? How can this mountain of sinners be the city on a hill? The Catholic Church has many critics today. They often point to scars from the past and to wounds still healing…