The 6 most-read U.S. Catholic articles of 2015

Check out our 6 most popular articles from 2015!

1. A spirituality for busy people

All of us are pushed in a thousand directions over the course of a single day. Spouses, children, parents, work, friends—it can be hard to find the time for daily maintenance, much less the mental space to practice any kind of spirituality.

2. Are we living in sin?

We are all sinners. However, the phrase “living in sin” has traditionally been applied to couples who live together without being validly married. It is time to recognize the reality that holiness and sin coexist in the life of every human person and in every human relationship.

3. It’s okay to be a ‘bad’ Catholic

“If I say, ‘I’m a Catholic, but I really want to see space for gay people to worship as full members of the community,’ then they’ll say, ‘You’re a bad Catholic.’ They’re not even Catholics themselves, but they’re happy to exile me from my own tradition. At that point, I stop behaving as the Catholic they need me to be.”

4. Don’t put priests on a pedestal

When the ordained come across as somehow superior to their parishioners and people they encounter, the playing field is tilted. This kind of disconnect can be fatal to a priest’s efforts to build a sense of community in his parish.

5. On Catholic culture

I grew up in a Catholic cultural bubble. It was the 1950s and ’60s in Clinton, Iowa, a smallish town of what was then about 25,000 that lies along the Mississippi River south of Dubuque. The culture I grew up in–the culture of millions of other American Catholics–is now gone for good.

6. A theology of encounter

Love and justice go two ways. Like Jesus and the sinful woman (Luke 7), we need to be able to both offer and accept kindness. And be willing, like Pope Francis, to have that hospitality change us.

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