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Pope Francis Makes First Public Speech Since Hospitalization for Abdominal Surgery…
After praying the Angelus prayer in Latin with the crowd gathered below in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis the pope prayed for the victims of an attack in Uganda, where rebels attacked a school near the Congo border, killing at least 38 students. Pope Francis delivers his Angelus address from the window of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace on June 18, 2023. Vatican Media The pope also expressed sadness at the sinking of a refugee ship off the coast of Greece that has left more than 500 migrants presumed drowned, according to the Associated Press. “Next Tuesday, June 20 marks the World Refugee Day promoted by the United Nations,” he said. “With great sorrow, I think of the victims of the severe shipwreck in recent days off the coast of Greece. And it seems that the sea was calm. I renew my pr...
The Holy Spirit clearly had 2023 America in mind with this Sunday’s Gospel…
The Gospel reading is a plea for help from a world that longs for the Church this Sunday, the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A. You can tell the words are inspired by the Holy Spirit, because what St. Matthew wrote two millennia ago expresses precisely what is missing from parishes in America today. In the Gospel, the Holy Spirit describes for Americans the people whose homes fill our parishes. “At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd,” it says. Isn’t this a description of our own neighborhoods? All around us, people are suffering and even dying due to precisely the problems we have powerful answers to. Sex and personal identity issues are at crisis levels. STDs are at record highs. Gi...
Dear Reluctant Potential Dad: Give your wife the baby she wants…
Dear Reluctant Potential Dad, So, your wife wants another baby, but you are putting on the brakes. I understand. When I was in graduate school at the University of Notre Dame, my wife Jennifer wanted another baby. We were only making $10,000 a year, and I felt overwhelmed in a demanding graduate program. In fact, I thought I might fail out and destroy my dream of becoming a professor. But my father-in-law Miles insisted that a new baby would also bring new blessings. I wanted to believe him, but I was scared. The fear I had then and you have now is a good sign because it shows that you care about your wife and your child and want to give them your best, to provide for them what they need and what they would like. What I didn’t realize was that having another child is itself providing...
I just concluded a 45-day jail term for trying to talk women out of abortion…
The author of this article is a convicted criminal. I was lured into a “life of crime” beginning in 1978 by someone who himself was once charged with federal racketeering. I have been called by judges “a dangerous person from whom society needs to be protected,” a “recidivist,” and, most recently, by the Attorney General of New York, even a “terrorist.” I have spent time in jail for my “crimes.” Just last month I concluded a 45-day jail term at the Oakland County Jail in Pontiac, Michigan, out of which I served thirty-four days. On March 31st, I was booked into cellblock F1. One of the first things I wanted to do, which is the case with most inmates, was make “contact” with the “outside world.” So, I took a seat in a line of chairs to make a phone call on one of four phones available...
Still pondering ‘Ted Lasso’ and the redemption of ‘Nate the Great’…
(OSV News) Parting truly is “such sweet sorrow,” and in this era of anti-heroes, deep irony and unsympathetic characters, I miss “Ted Lasso.” Having found a well-written, brilliantly acted story about people I could actually care about — even if I needed closed captioning to understand most of them — I’ve felt the loss keenly. Reason, and my oxymoronic, increasingly short attention span, both dictate that I should by now have found some new diversion, but this series about a relentlessly upbeat dad-talker and his effect on the people around him is still firing my synapses. Mentally, I revisit it daily and reflexively — the way one’s tongue revisits a missing molar. Except, I know why I lost the molar; no questions there. But of “Ted Lasso” I have questions. The final season left me with th...
Father Rupnik is dismissed? Good. But I have questions…..
(OSV News) The Society of Jesus has dismissed Father Marko Rupnik from the order. According to Father Johan Verschueren, his superior in Rome, Father Rupnik was turned out by the decree of Jesuit Superior General Father Arturo Sosa June 9; he has 30 days to appeal that decision. This was done, as Father Verschueren put it in a report from Catholic News Service Rome, “in accordance with canon law, due to his stubborn refusal to observe the vow of obedience.” Well good. But I have questions. The most urgent concerns Father Rupnik’s status as a priest. He remains one, of course. Dismissal from a religious order does not laicize a priest. Canonically, though, he is not able to function as a priest unless his faculties and ministerial duties are first approved by a bishop receiving him into a d...
Protesters Shut Down Dodger Stadium Main Gate on Pride Night…
The Los Angeles Dodgers‘ Pride Night arrived on Friday, with the protester and police presence you would expect after weeks of controversy stirred up around the guests invited to the event. The Dodgers received criticism from Catholic and conservative figures when they announced they would be giving an award to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of people who dress in drag as nuns who were among the first people to offer support to AIDS patients at a time when such help was severely lacking. The team reacted to the backlash by uninviting the Sisters from Pride Night, leading to an opposing backlash from its other Pride Night partners. It eventually apologized and re-invited the Sisters, drawing further condemnation from the likes of former vice president Mike Pence and U.S....
What St. Benedict teaches us about fatherhood…
We call St. Benedict of Nursia the father of monks, and his teaching on spiritual fatherhood drew me, in part, to become a Benedictine oblate. Thirteen years ago, as a father of a growing family, I was looking for greater focus and direction in my spiritual life, especially in integrating prayer, work and family life. I thought back to a Cistercian monastery where I had made some retreats in high school, where I first encountered St. Benedict’s great Rule for monks, which he wrote while serving as abbot of the monastery Monte Cassino in the 6th century. The monastery seemed to fit as a model for the kind of life and culture I sought to build within my home and through my work as a theologian. For a father, St. Benedict’s teaching on the role of the abbot stands out the most, particularly c...
The Summer Reading List, 2023 edition…
Few of the following qualify as “beach reading;” they all qualify as good reading. In graduate school, I was informed that there was no such thing as “biblical theology,” only textual analysis. Bishop Robert Barron demonstrates what nonsense that was, and is, in The Great Story of Israel: Election, Freedom, Holiness, a book that nourishes both mind and soul. In The Virtues, John Garvey, former president of the Catholic University of America, shares the wisdom by which he reminded CUA students that genuine “higher education” means “deeper formation” as well as “more information:” the perfect gift to anyone entering college or university this fall. The culture wars continue. Three recent volumes help prepare 21st-century defenders of the faith for the work ahead...
The zen of the river, the synodality of the nuncio, and the soul of golf…
The zen of the river, the synodality of the nuncio, and the soul of golf Skip to content Happy Friday friends, And a very happy feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to you all. Unless you’re a Dodgers fan — you should reflect on your life choices today. Consider switching to the Angels, they have two obvious first ballot hall of famers on the team and are barely staying above .500. For an ’80s Cubs fan like me, that’s basically the golden ratio. I’m not going to go on about that particular event scheduled in LA, I’m just going to note that today is, and has been for a lot longer than there has been baseball, a deeply beautiful feast — the history of which we have a great explainer on here. The bishops have called for all Catholics to pray a Litany of the Sacred Heart today in reparatio...
Father Marko Rupnik Dismissed from Jesuits for ‘Stubborn Refusal to Observe the Vow of Obedience’…
Father Johan Verschueren, SJ, Rupnik’s superior whose name the statement was in, said no further comments will be made until after this period has concluded. In February, the Jesuits said they had opened a new internal procedure against Rupnik after receiving accusations against him spanning from 1985 to 2018. The “highly credible” accusations, they said, included claims of spiritual, psychological, and sexual abuse, and abuse of conscience. The latest statement said the team investigating the accusations delivered its dossier the same month. Rupnik’s superiors imposed certain restrictions on his ministry at the recommendation of the investigators. The restrictions, according to the Society of Jesus, were “to change communities and accept a new mission in which we offered him one last chan...
When Evangelicals become Catholic, hearing these Catholic horror stories is just part of the process…
When my family entered the Church 22 years ago, some of my evangelical friends went out of their way to tell me Catholic horror stories. I hadn’t thought of this for years, but remembered it the other day when I was thrust into the company of evangelical Anglicans. At least one of them had been among the people who two decades ago told me the horror stories. I’m guessing he and they would still tell them if they saw any point to it, but they rarely tell me the stories anymore, on the few occasions we meet. One of the unexpected blessings of having been in the Church this long is that people finally think of you as Catholic. From their point of view, you’re lost for good, like a ship sunk to the bottom of the ocean. For a while, I think, they see new converts as being in what scholars call ...
