Yesteryear’s good TV dads replaced by today’s drunks and klutzes

Six-fold costs one more argument to end child homelessness

Every night in Pennsylvania thousands of children sleep in homeless shelters. Can we measure what the awful experience of being homeless can do to a child? Perhaps not, but we can see what it is costing in dollars, which is quite a bit more than it would cost simply to provide housing. The People’s Emergency Center in Philadelphia examined 13 cost categories associated with child homelessness, including physical and mental health, social services and housing, early development and education, and costs associated with high school dropout. For the 9,027 children in Pennsylvania who slept at least one night in a shelter in 2011, these were more than costly problems. The categories represent the grim reality these children face.

A knock at the door led to a path of service

I wouldn't realize it for years, but a knock on my door almost a decade ago was going to change my life in fundamental ways. The knock came from Ken Hackett. The door was to my office as dean of the Mendoza College of Business of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Ken was president of Catholic Relief Services, which was about to put lay members on its board for the first time. He was recruiting me. I had always believed in the organization's mission to serve the poor and most vulnerable. Since I grew up in Hong Kong and was influenced by Catholics from the United States -- the Maryknoll Sisters who educated me intellectually and spiritually -- I felt it was a mission I should be part of. I didn't know that a decade later, I would be president of CRS.

From Penn State sexual abuse report, some striking similarities

Responding to editors’ requests for current commentary from around the Catholic press, Catholic News Service presents the following editorial from the July 29 issue of Our Sunday Visitor, a national Catholic newsweekly based in Huntington, Ind. It was written by the editorial board. At the request of the shell-shocked board of trustees of Pennsylvania State […]

Joining the fight for accurate images of women and girls

Show me the money? Show us the values

Bumper-sticker message gives a man ideas

I pulled up behind a four-wheel-drive vehicle at a stoplight near our home the other day. Across the rear bumper, the driver had stenciled, in quite large red letters, "Driver Has No Money." At first, I thought it might be a pizza delivery vehicle, but when it turned left in front of me I could see that there was no pizza logo on the top or sides. Apparently, I had just come upon someone who 1) emphatically did not want to be robbed, and assumed that notifying would-be bandits possessed of literacy skills might help in that regard and 2) felt compelled to share his or her financial status with the world. The more I thought about it, there were plenty of times when that particular "Driver Has No Money" message would have been appropriate across the back of my car, too. The years 1970-77 and 1989-91 come to mind, in particular.

On immigration, common sense from the court

Given all of the attention that followed the Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act -- attention that was certainly warranted -- there's a chance that the high court's ruling on the draconian Arizona immigration law may not have received the attention it deserved. The ruling came down from the court on June 25 -- three days before the monumental health care decision. And in case you missed it or lost details of the immigration decision in the large shadow of health care reform, here's what happened:

From food banks to porches, needs persist in summer

My golden retriever is sprawled on the cool vinyl of the laundry room floor, unwilling to make her usual dash to the window to bark at the mailman. Obviously, this strange behavior, if not a sign of the apocalypse, is at least a sign that it’s way too hot. My friends in Alaska think it’s […]