Essay

Walker Percy wrote back in 1971 that  “our beloved old U.S.A. is in a bad way.” His novel Love in the Ruins is a quite prophetic novel, much of which is coming true in our […]

Readings: • Bar 5:1-9 • Ps 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6 • Phil 1:4-6, 8-11 • Lk 3:1-6 “There are three distinct comings of the Lord of which I know,” wrote St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the […]

The bi-annual papal blessing “Urbi et Orbi”—to the City (meaning Rome, of course) and to the World—is a charming Catholic event reflecting the solicitude a pope feels for the City entrusted to his episcopal care […]

Here, after some delay resulting from the vicissitudes of life and death this vale of tears and the unforeseen quotidian professional and personal demands of each new day, I offer a second response (my first […]

In today’s [15 dec 2014] homily Pope Francis warns, yet again, about the threat that he feels modern Pharisees pose in the Church. Now, some people think that the pope’s incessant critiques of law and lawyers […]

Just after I was named auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, Archbishop Gomez, my new boss, told me to get the Waze app for my iPhone. He explained that it was a splendid way to navigate the often […]

Shortly after jihadist murderers killed over 130 people in Paris, seven of the terrorists blowing themselves up in the process, President Obama spoke to the nation and described the massacres as “an attack on all […]

Some years ago, I was involved in a Catholic-Evangelical dialogue. One of our Protestant brothers challenged the Catholics in the group to articulate clearly what the Gospel is. I knew what he was getting at: […]

In the modern world, where we shouldn’t presume to tell others what’s true and false, good and bad, or right and wrong, saying we’d all be Catholic if we really thought about it is sure […]

Readings for Sunday, November 15, 2015: • Dn 12:1-3 • Ps 16:5, 8, 9-10, 11 • Heb 10:11-14, 18 • Mk 13:24-32 At the start of this month, On the Solemnity of All Saints, the […]