I treasure the time when I treated my mother to lunch at Sunshine restaurant in Dubuque, Iowa.
She went around the crowded restaurant pointing to me and proudly telling complete strangers, “That’s my son. He is a priest.”
Category: Columns
Christian martyrs and the case for reason
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There were more Christian martyrs in the 20th century than in all of the previous 19 centuries combined. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and many of their lesser-known totalitarian colleagues put millions of Christians to death for their faith in that terrible 100-year period.
Be still and know that He is God
God gave me an unexpected forced retreat last month, a literal message to “slow down.”
I was on my way to an indoor water park, traveling a few cars behind my children’s school bus in order to help chaperone at the park.
It was the day of a spring snow storm, and I hit an icy patch and started sliding off the road.
Human suffering and the experiences of God
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I write these words on Holy Thursday, as the Christian world enters into the holiest and most spiritually intense time of the year. The long season of Lent has prepared us to delve once more into the mystery of the dying and rising of the Lord Jesus.
As I have been contemplating the events of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, my mind has turned, again and again, to the brute fact of pain.
The reality of abortion and the hope of change
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We stand at a pivotal point in the great moral debate over abortion in our country — not because new arguments have emerged, but rather because laws so breathtaking in their barbarism have been passed, and a film so visceral in its presentation of the reality of abortion has found a wide audience.
As John Henry Newman reminded us, assent to a proposition is rarely a matter of acquiescing to rational demonstration alone; instead, it often has to do with the accumulation of argument, image, impression, experience, and witness.
Communion is expression of God’s unchanging love
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Spirituality for Today
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Holy Communion is the most precious gift that Jesus gave us. It is the perfect expression of God’s unchanging love. The Eucharist is the real presence of Christ on all the altars throughout the world.
In 2005, Cardinal Avery Dulles wrote, “This teaching surrounding the Eucharist, remains as true and as normative today, as it did from the beginning. The Council of Trent described the real presence of Jesus with three adverbs: truly, really, and substantially.”
Driving through the night — A faithful co-worker of the Lord
Following is a homily given by Msgr. James Bartylla, diocesan administrator, for the fifth Sunday of Lent.
The Gospel account of the woman caught in the sin of adultery is one of our favorite Gospel passages — one of the passages most people remember best.
Easter faith reveals flowers of hope
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A boy returned from catechism class, where he learned about Jesus’ Resurrection. During his walk home, he stopped at a religious goods store to study a crucifix in the window.
An elderly man joined him. He seemed confused by the crucifix.
How to boldly go forth and make disciples
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| Brandon Vogt |
Most parishes wish they were better at evangelizing and making disciples. They wish they could help parishioners become more ardent, committed followers of Christ who are excited to share their faith with others.
But how do we get there? Marcel LeJeune, president and founder of Catholic Missionary Disciples, has been dedicated to the task for many years.
In this interview from Word on Fire, Brandon Vogt sits down with Marcel to chat about how parishes can become disciple-making factories.
Gene-edited babies and the runaway train of in vitro fertilization
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In November 2018, a Chinese scientist named He Jankui (known to his associates as “JK”) claimed that he had successfully produced the world’s first gene-edited human babies using “gene surgery.”
The twin girls, he said, were born somewhere in China with a modified gene that makes them immune to infection from HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. A special DNA splicing technique called CRISPR/Cas 9 was used when they were embryos to make the edits. In a series of short videos posted on YouTube, JK offers an explanation of, and justification for, what he did.