Thought-provoking issues about death are more than just table talk

What’s a floppy disc? How quickly the world changes

You can often judge a person’s age by learning about the toys he or she played with as a child. Some toys are timeless, such as Barbie. Others will always be associated with a certain moment in time. Children of the 1980s fondly remember the furor over Cabbage Patch Kids and Transformers. Those born a […]

Why should we register to vote?

A long time ago I asked a fellow college student if she was excited to register to vote on her upcoming 18th birthday. My classmate replied, “Why would I do that, I’m not a political science major?!” I never forgot her words. She asks an important question: Why should we register to vote? In Pennsylvania, […]

Our faith should transform our politics

The following guest editorial appeared Sept. 5 on the website of Columbia magazine, a publication of the Knights of Columbus, by Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus and a New York Times bestselling author. His latest book is “Beyond a House Divided: The Moral Consensus Ignored by Washington, Wall Street and the […]

Rest is essential in a busy teen’s life

Some days, I bet you’re absolutely exhausted — can’t-get-out-of-bed, just-five-more-minutes, drowsing-off-in-class exhausted. No, scratch that. I bet it’s more accurate to say “most days.” Teens have a lot on their schedules. A long day of school starts early, and there’s a mountain of homework to complete every night. Sports schedules are particularly demanding and extracurricular […]

Brutality does not have the last word

The serenity of the setting, the graceful branches of old trees beneath a dazzling blue sky belied its reality. We were amid the mass graves of countless Cambodians, children, men and women. The Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Cambodia is part of the “The Killing Fields,” the title of the 1984 Academy Award-winning movie about […]

Get over the fear of exercising in public

My car’s water pump will soon need to be replaced, and between now and when I take it to the mechanic, I have been walking much more: to the store, to meet a friend for lunch, to the pharmacy. One of the reasons I live where I do is that I have the luxury of […]

Ending a war that has no victors

Symbolic events have often been precursors of change in foreign policies. Some have even ended wars. The self-immolation of a Buddhist monk in the streets of Saigon in 1963 caused the Kennedy administration to rethink its support of the Vietnamese government. Five years later, the sharp criticism of the Vietnam War effort by television’s Walter […]

Do Catholic values dominate the lives of young Catholics?

We tend to forget that all of our thoughts, actions and feelings are culturally conditioned. The values that predominate our secular culture influence all thinking, acting and feeling within that culture. So a very practical question all Catholics, especially young ones, should be considering these days is: Whose values or which values dominate my thoughts, […]