Category: Columns

On
Morgan Smith

Reflections on the dignity of the human person

Morgan Smith

As I drove home from my friend Andrew’s funeral, I noticed in myself a deep sadness. This sadness was and is a tension that is related to a huge question: Why?

I was so moved. When I stood in line to enter the church, I was looking at all the faces­­ — these faces from my past that I now only see at funerals. A sea of shock, dismay, and disbelief.

Andrew committed suicide recently. This was the furthest thing that anyone would have ever expected him to do, and it feels so strange to type those words.

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Tony Magliano

Dialogue: an essential ingredient for peaceful relationships

According to the New York Times, during a White House luncheon in 1954 Winston Churchill said, “To jaw-jaw [talk-talk] always is better than to war-war.”

While clearly not a pacifist, the United Kingdom’s World War II prime minister had seen upfront the absolute horror of war and became convinced that tirelessly striving to resolve disputes through respectful dialogue was always preferable to war.

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Fr. Robert Barron

A lion of the American Church

First in a series of reflections by Fr. Robert Barron on the life of Cardinal Francis George.

Cardinal Francis George, who died April 17 at the age of 78, was obviously a man of enormous accomplishment and influence.

He was a cardinal of the Roman Church, a past president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the archbishop of one of the largest and most complicated archdioceses in the world, and the intellectual leader of the American Church.

A number of American bishops have told me that when Cardinal George spoke at the bishops’ meetings, the entire room would fall silent and everyone would listen.

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Jean Mueller

Senior bullying and taking action to prevent it

Ask Jean by Jean Mueller column logo

Q After much debate and even some coercing, my mother who is in her late 70s moved to a senior apartment complex.

We were all so relieved. We thought that she would be happy, make new friends, have more opportunities for social connections, and in general be able to relax and enjoy things without the stress of home ownership and all of the upkeep.

I think we may have made a huge mistake.

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Fr. Robert Barron

Problem of Catholics leaving Church

A survey by William J. Byron and Charles Zech appeared in America magazine. It was conducted at the request of David O’Connell, the bishop of Trenton, and its focus was very simple: it endeavored to discover why Catholics have left the Church.

No one denies that a rather substantive number of Catholics have taken their leave during the past 20 years, and Byron and Zech wanted to find out why. They did so in the most direct way possible: they asked those who had quit.

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Fr. Tad Pacholczyk

Undoing a chemical abortion

In 1978, Charles E. Rice, a former professor of law at Notre Dame Law School made this prediction in his book Beyond Abortion: The Theory and Practice:

“The abortion of the future will be by pill, suppository, or some other do-it-yourself method. At that point the killing of a baby will be wholly elective and private. We have, finally, caught up with the pagan Romans who endowed the father, the pater familias, with the right to kill his child at his discretion. We give that right to the mother. But it is all the same to the victim.”

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Fr. Robert Barron

Startling news of the resurrection

Just a few weeks before the most significant Christian holy day of the year, British Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking on an evangelical radio program, articulated what, for him, is the meaning of Easter.

He explained that the central message of Easter is “kindness, compassion, hard work, and responsibility.” I’m for all of those virtues, but so, I would venture to guess, is any decent person from any background, religious or non-religious. Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, fair-minded agnostics, and atheists would all subscribe to that rather abstract and harmless description of the significance of Easter.

In a sense, we shouldn’t blame the prime minister for his characterization, for the Christian Churches in general, but especially the Anglican Church, have not distinguished themselves for the crispness of their doctrinal formulations.

But if that’s all Easter is about, not to put too fine a point on it, the jig is up.

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Fr. Donald Lange

Let us make every day an Earth Day

On clear mornings from my apartment window which faces Platteville’s Mound, I enjoy watching the morning sun, like a huge orange-red host, rise majestically from earth’s chalice, inspiring me to offer a new day to God.

Beautiful sunrises deepen my respect for God’s gift of creation. Celebrating Earth Day on April 22 reminds me of my responsibility to care for this gift.

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Fr. Robert Barron

Why our democracy trusts in God

I was pleased that the United States Supreme Court dismissed a suit brought by Michael Newdow, a Sacramento man who wanted to remove the phrase “In God We Trust” from the nation’s coins and paper currency, as well as from the fronts of our public buildings.

The argument that the gentleman brought forward was that this custom somehow violates the First Amendment guarantee that the government shall make no law either establishing an official religion or prohibiting the free exercise of religion in the United States.

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George Weigel

Easter and evangelism: learning from St. Paul

Galatians 1:15-18 is not your basic witness-to-the-Resurrection text.

Yet St. Paul’s mini-spiritual autobiography helps us understand just how radically the experience of the Risen Lord changed the first disciples’ religious worldview, and why an evangelical imperative was built into that experience.

St. Paul’s story

Here’s the Pauline text:

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