The Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ is deeply embedded in both the reality of the material world and the divine. Through Good Friday, we are reminded of the former. Through the Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday itself, we recall…
Passion Sunday has held special meaning for me ever since I participated in the annual procession and Eucharist for this feast celebrated at St. Peter’s Square in Rome back in 2001. Rome knows how to do liturgy, and they do…
It is small wonder that the early church chose Dec. 25 to represent the day that Christ was born. Just after the winter solstice, the day of the year in which we experience the longest night, the birth of Jesus…
It is a well-worn shibboleth that Catholics do not read the Bible. Unlike those studious Protestants, Catholics through the centuries were thought to leave all that Scripture stuff to the priests and nuns. Like any other shibboleth, this one turns…
Our publishing director, Joseph Sinasac, was the keynote speaker at the 50th-anniversary celebration of the Western Catholic Reporter. Among his many observations, Joseph writes: The paper is not independent of the authority of the archbishop whose duty it is to…
For several years, like many others, I had been after David Wells to write a book. I knew he had a book in him, and it was a great book. It’s just that he had to sit down and write…
In an age where all morality seems relative, is there still a place for the Ten Commandments? Can their unrelenting insistence that some things are right and some are wrong still teach us anything today? Jesuit Father Max Oliva thinks…
People who work with the written word have to get their inspiration from somewhere. Many writers, journalists and editors in Catholic communications turn today to St. Francis de Sales. Recent popes have chosen Jan. 24, the feast of St. Francis…
Daylight comes late and ends early in November. The cooling temperatures and shorter days are harbingers of the looming winter, but also of the spiritual season of Advent. This pre-Christmas period is a time of preparation, of “making straight” the…
Dorothy Day, the renowned founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, once said in her later years: “Don’t call me a saint. I don’t want to be dismissed so easily.” Years after her death, she must be looking down from heaven,…