Archives for February 2022

Homilies for March 2022

For March 2 (Ash Wednesday), March 6, March 13, March 20, and March 27 Ash Wednesday – March 2, 2022 Readings: Jl 2:12–18 • Ps 51:3–4, 5–6ab, 12–13, 14 and 17 • 2 Cor 5:20—6:2 • Mt 6:1–6, 16–18    bible.usccb.org/bible/r … [Read more...]

An Open Letter to My Bishop and to All U.S. Bishops

I write this letter after much prayer and reflection and with the utmost respect for the complex issue of leadership in the church. I am not naïve regarding the challenges that bishops and church leaders face in the light of many crises a … [Read more...]

Lent: In Search Of the One and the Real

Lent, the great and holy fast, comes upon us again. It is a season of promise and peril. Promise, because we are invited to anticipate in ourselves the paschal mystery, whereby human nature is healed and elevated. Peril, because we risk … [Read more...]

The Year of Joseph

I hear Joseph silently confessing his sinfulness to the Angel of the Lord (see Matthew 1:18–25): “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof but only say the Word and my soul shall be healed.” We have critical memory los … [Read more...]

The Church’s Teaching on Marriage, Part Three

Go to Part I Go to Part II In Vitro Fertilization, Artificial Insemination, and Surrogate Motherhood It bears repeating that “‘[e]ach human person, in his absolutely unique singularity, is constituted not only by his spirit, but by his … [Read more...]

Flannery Was Right

The Problem of Nihilism Within the Catholic Church

In a letter to Betty Hester dated August 28, 1955, Flannery O’Connor wrote: “If you live today you breathe in nihilism. In or out of the Church, it’s the gas you breathe.”[1. Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being, hereafter HB (New York: Far … [Read more...]

Questions Answered – March 2022

Qualifications for the Priesthood Question: What are the qualities a person needs to be a Catholic priest? Answer: The best way to answer this question is to follow the address given by Pope Benedict XVI a number of years ago to the … [Read more...]