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What Pope Francis Gets Right—and Wrong—About Poverty and Wealth
Yesterday the Catholic Church celebrated the second annual “World Day of the Poor.” As Pope Francis has made helping the poor a centerpiece of his pontificate, he naturally addressed the topic in his...
View ArticleWhy Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving?
We are now in the Christian season of Lent, the forty days of preparation leading to Easter. During this time, Christians are called to contemplate Jesus giving himself up to suffering and death on the...
View ArticleThe Unthinkable: A Christmas Poem
The Unthinkable The angels gaze down from heaven,“The land is doomed,” they say.Man has rejected the Lord,He worships himself instead of God. As the angels lament the fall of man,They hear the...
View ArticleCalled to Divide, Not ‘Dialogue’
“Dialogue is our method… The path ahead, then, is dialogue among yourselves, dialogue in your presbyterates, dialogue with lay persons, dialogue with families, dialogue with society. I cannot ever tire...
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The Church’s Dunkirk Moment
One of the greatest military events of the 20th century was not a victorious battle, but a hasty retreat. On May 27, 1940, the “Miracle of Dunkirk” began. British, French, and Belgian troops had...
View ArticleThe Time for Dialogue is Over
May 9th, 2012 is a significant date in this nation’s history. That is the day President Barack Obama, just beginning a re-election campaign against presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, announced...
View ArticleHow I Went from a Defender of Vatican II to Its Critic
I entered the Catholic Church in 1993, during the height of the Pope John Paul II papacy. Just a few months after I was received into the Church, I attended World Youth Day in Denver, along with a...
View ArticleHow Do Catholics Come to Believe What They Believe?
It’s no secret that many Catholics do not accept all the teachings of the Catholic Church. Almost 70% don’t believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist. Large numbers of young Catholics don’t think...
View ArticleDefining the Clans
It’s no secret that infighting flourishes among traditional Catholics. Of course, infighting is common in many ideological groups (in my pro-life activist days, I would joke, “If you put 10 pro-lifers...
View ArticleEvangelization, Not Public Relations
Five years ago this week I was the co-host of a local TV station’s week-long coverage of Pope Francis’s visit to the U.S. The TV station chose me because I was the local diocese’s Director of...
View ArticleAlways There
Eulogy given at the funeral of Russell Sammons, March 27, 2021. I’ll try to keep this short, as I know two things dad really didn’t like are long-winded speeches and people talking about him. When...
View ArticleI’m Going Dumb
I know what many people will say when they read the title of this post: “What do you mean, ‘going?’” However, in this case, I’m specifically referring to my recent decision to downgrade to a...
View ArticleWronged and Yet Wrong
I’m going to break one of my main internet rules with this post. Many years ago I decided to not write about Catholic “personalities” that I consider generally on “our side.” I try to focus only on...
View ArticleInternet Anonymity: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Can you imagine an Internet where anonymity wasn’t allowed? Where some technical advance made it so that if you posted online, everyone would know exactly who posted it? Edward Snowden can, and it...
View ArticleWrestling with the Bible
The Bible is the inspired Word of God. As such, every single word is authored by God and thus has meaning for our lives. The Bible is meant to change us, to make us more like Christ. We don’t conform...
View ArticleThe Morality of Bitcoin
Catholics have long had an uneasy relationship with money. As our Lord said, “You cannot serve both God and mammon” (a word that means “riches”). He also told us that “Blessed are the poor.” Many of...
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2021 Catholic Gift Guide
As Christmas approaches, many Catholics are thinking of gifts for their loved ones. But in today’s world, many of us don’t want to shop at the Amazons and other Big Box stores, which promote values...
View ArticleKeeping Up With Inflation
[Note: I am not a professional investment advisor and this is not investment advice. It’s just my opinion.] Inflation is making us all poorer. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it. With an...
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The Discipline That Must Not Be Named
It’s an annual tradition in recent years for Catholics—particularly priests—to downplay the idea of fasting or abstaining from certain foods during Lent. “What really matters is fasting from...
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The United States of America: Too Big to Succeed?
In the pantheon of great American presidents, Abraham Lincoln stands tall. Instrumental in ending the vile institution of slavery in our country, he also kept the country united when it appeared the...
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