People with and without faith see shame as a Catholic thing. They say it’s an instrument church authorities use to control the faithful. Tragically, our church’s sex scandals have earned several of those authorities a place of dishonor in the…
Millennials and their younger brothers and sisters might appreciate this Sunday’s Mass readings. Our kids tend to be tech savvy and they realize their intelligent devices come preloaded with software. What they may not realize is that by using these…
Many marry their faith as faithfully as they do their spouses. So the fact that the population of “Nones” (unaffiliated with any religion) is rising in the Western world along with the divorce rate shouldn’t be surprising. A Pew Research…
Jesus didn’t have much use for hypocrites—those intelligent “authorities” who liked telling people how to live but relished even more representing themselves as something they weren’t: wise. We have modern-day Pharisees in every field today—politics, showbiz, science, even in our…
Several New Age gurus have been credited for saying “Life’s a marathon, not a sprint.” There’s nothing new about that philosophy. It’s as old as prophecy. But for some of the prophets, life was more of a marathon relay—from Moses…
While those young Thai soccer players were trapped deep in an underground, underwater cave, it became apparent their only hope of salvation lay outside that environment. It came in the form of Navy SEALS who used all their skills to…
As science and medicine enable more of us live to ripe old ages, or well past the deadlines certain illnesses used to impose, more of us also depend on others to preserve our quality of life. Food and shelter alone…
The greatest lesson of Christianity is the simplest: How to be selfishly selfless. That seems like a contradiction to anybody who doesn’t know the love of family. So imagine the band of brothers Christ assembled to carry on his mission…
For such a seemingly meek man, Mr. Rogers wielded a lot of power in his neighborhood. Many young adults grew up watching Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood on Public Television, finding solace in his humble, friendly, accepting manner. He offered them the…
A half century ago, my mother had a Scotch tape dispenser with this little piece of Pennsylvania Dutch wisdom inscribed on its side: “We grow too soon old and too late smart.” In today’s era of pervasive marketing, the Scotch…