Commentaries
When their parish merges, what’s a couple to do?
Deacon Paul and Helen McBlain know that parishes, like many things we find comfortable, never stay the same. When a parish closes by merging with another, families can take simple steps to start anew and strengthen their faith life.
Pope Francis and divorce
The pope has more than once mentioned mercy as offering a way forward on the vexed question of the ban -- increasingly ignored -- on divorced and remarried Catholics receiving Communion.
Young woman saw needs of Africa, so she started creating jobs
The Catholic Church can embrace “social entrepreneurship” to improve lives and communities, says a Villanova native and Georgetown University graduate. Her Dare to Innovate movement aims to give unemployed youths in Guinea a hand up, not a hand out.
Fear spurred by 9/11 turned immigrants into the bad guys
Some twenty years ago, immigration offered a mutual benefit and it was allowed with a wink and a nod. Then came 9/11. Columnist Effie Caldarola urges immigration reform as a nod to a higher moral law.
Rebranding of Christianity for the poor, not middle class
Columnist Steve Kent notices that Pope Francis keeps speaking about the need to respond to the poor, even if some want him instead to speak about the struggling middle class. They'll have a long wait, Kent suggests.
Where have all the kind people gone?
Before you join the ranks of rude and nasty people because you feel testy and annoyed, Karen Osbourne suggests three ways to lighten up and be nice.
The pope said what? Match the pope to the quote, get a surprise
Some observers, like columnist Terry Mattingly, see an insidious attempt to paint Pope Francis as a radical progressive, when he in actuality he joins recent popes in emphasizing human rights.
St. John Paul II quickly became leading teacher of family life
Msgr. J. Brian Bransfield, an expert on the saintly pope’s teaching on human sexuality and families, recalls how fast his Theology of the Body spread from a weekly message in Rome to parish study groups worldwide.
Hope in things unseen, or unspoken
While teaching a course on virtue, John Garvey is thinking about hope, mindfulness and grace in a time when it's unfashionable to speak publicly of spirituality.
A possible answer about why we suffer
Why do loved ones, like priest columnist Father Eugene Hemrick's brother, suffer terribly before they die? One reason might be that it brings the best out of those who are well.