A few weeks ago a report came out from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati about the new plan to "re-structure" the archdiocese. The short version is that "the restructuring process will combine the archdiocese’s 208 parishes into 60 “families of parishes...The goal, church officials say, is to eventually unite the 60 new parish families into single parishes." [...]
I've been reading a fair bit about angels and demons recently. An excellent new book The Other World We Live is subtitled, A Catholic Vision of Angelic Reality. It's a good primer written in a punchy, accessible style and outlines the reality and relevance of the angelic in the world today. I have also completed a ten module course [...]
I remember when and why I began to believe in the reality of purgatory. It was after taking a funeral and I wondered where the person who had died had gone. It struck me that the doctrine of purgatory (which I had up to then rejected as "unBiblical") was simply common sense. I had come to [...]
This bit of satire from the archives, but still relevant as the POTUS visits the Vatican and the members of the Catholic hierarchy continue to tiptoe through the minefield of abortion politics: When a local Catholic priest denied Reinhard Heydrich communion because of his support of the so called "final solution for the Jews," local Catholic [...]
I am going to find it difficult to leave Twitter, but when I examine my relationship with the micro-blogging site, I think I will have no regrets in the long run. I originally joined Facebook and Twitter in order to promote my blog posts and drive traffic to my main means of sharing the Catholic faith--this [...]
When I was a high school chaplain I used to explain to the kids that a sin was not just something that made you feel bad. Often I'd get folks in the confessional who would "confess" that they were angry with another person. Anger is not necessarily a sin. The Bible says "Be angry but sin [...]
Book Review by guest blogger Lisa Comerford As grace brings life to the soul, so pictures bring life to the story. Fr. Didier-Marie Golay’s Living on Love is a portfolio of the work of art that was the life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. A vast number of images, historical information, and excerpts of various writings [...]
Today's news is that the former Anglican Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir Ali, has been received into full communion with the Catholic Church and the rumor is that he was discouraged from taking this step not so much by his Anglican colleagues, but by very high ranking Catholic prelates. Converts to the faith and those [...]
In the confessional I often hear folks confessing impatience. I must confess that I sometimes become impatient with impatience because I don't really think it is a sin. For something to be a sin your will has to be engaged, and by definition being impatient is not willful. It is a stumble it is not an [...]
The Catholic Church in France is reeling with a report that over the last sixty or seventy years tens of thousands have been abused by priests, nuns and religious. The response, of course, is one of shock, dismay and horror. We condemn all forms of abuse--especially sexual abuse of minors. However, it is fair to ask [...]