I have just received word that, after voting to remove a large statue of St. Junípero Serra that stands in front of their City Hall, the government of Ventura, Calif, (which is in my pastoral region) is now considering removing the image of Padre Serra from the city seal and from the badges of the Ventura police officers.
Tag: robert
Unorthodox and the modern myth of origins
Unorthodox, a mini-series that debuted on Netflix a few weeks ago, is the story of a young woman who escapes from her oppressive Hasidic community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and finds freedom with a group of welcoming friends in Berlin.
Love an enemy this Lent
The three classical spiritual practices that the Church urges us to embrace during Lent are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
A prayer at the tomb of St. Paul
I write these words on the airplane taking me home from my first visit as a bishop ad limina apostolorum (to the threshold of the apostles).
This is the pilgrimage, required by canon law of every bishop, to pray at the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul and to meet personally with the successor of Peter.
In an earlier column, I wrote of the extraordinary visit to the tomb of Peter and an even more extraordinary conversation with the Galilean fisherman’s successor, Pope Francis.Spending time with my spiritual father
I write these words from the Eternal City of Rome, whither I’ve come with my brother bishops from Region 11 (California, Nevada, and Hawaii) for our ad limina visit.
This is a regular and canonically required trip to pray at the limina apostolorum (the threshold of the Apostles), the tombs of Ss. Peter and Paul, and to meet with the successor of Peter.
Yesterday was the first official day of the pilgrimage, and it was extraordinary indeed.
Film should be called The One Pope
The new and much-ballyhooed Netflix film The Two Popes should, by rights, be called The One Pope, for it presents a fairly nuanced, textured, and sympathetic portrait of Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis) and a complete caricature of Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI).
This imbalance fatally undermines the movie, whose purpose, it seems, is to show that old grumpy, legalistic Benedict finds his spiritual bearings through the ministrations of friendly, forward-looking Francis.
But such a thematic trajectory ultimately does violence to both figures, and turns what could have been a supremely interesting character study into a predictable and tedious apologia for the filmmaker’s preferred version of Catholicism.
A talk on the Hill: A calling for justice
This is the second article in a two-part series about Bishop Robert Barron address to an audience of senators, representatives, and Capitol’s Hill staffers at the Library of Congress.
Next, I referenced the strange and illuminating account in the sixth chapter of Isaiah regarding the call of the prophet. Isaiah says that he saw the Lord in the temple surrounded by angels crying “Holy, Holy, Holy.”
The Hebrew term here is kadosh, which carries the sense of “other.”
God is source of existence
God is not one being among many, not one true thing among true things; rather, he is the source of existence itself, the unconditioned ground of all that is — and this entails that he is greater than all of the particular projects and desires that customarily preoccupy us.
A talk on the Hill: A calling for justice
This is the second article in a two-part series about Bishop Robert Barron address to an audience of senators, representatives, and Capitol’s Hill staffers at the Library of Congress.
Next, I referenced the strange and illuminating account in the sixth chapter of Isaiah regarding the call of the prophet. Isaiah says that he saw the Lord in the temple surrounded by angels crying “Holy, Holy, Holy.”
The Hebrew term here is kadosh, which carries the sense of “other.”
God is source of existence
God is not one being among many, not one true thing among true things; rather, he is the source of existence itself, the unconditioned ground of all that is — and this entails that he is greater than all of the particular projects and desires that customarily preoccupy us.
A talk on the Hill: When were you called?
This article is the first in a two-part series.
A couple of weeks ago, I had the distinct privilege of addressing an audience of senators, representatives, and Capitol Hill staffers in a beautiful room at the Library of Congress.
This event was made possible by two Congressmen, Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York, a Democrat, and Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, a Republican. Both had seen videos of the speeches I had given at Facebook and Google Headquarters and wanted something similar for those who work in government.
Mass of Christian Burial for Bishop Robert C. Morlino
A Corporal Work of Mercy has been performed for the late Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison.
The fourth bishop of the Diocese of Madison was laid to rest in Resurrection Cemetery in Madison on December 4.