It’s a common scene in any hospital. A person is rushed in with a life-threatening condition. Family members wait in the emergency room. Two doctors...
Death and dying
One way of evacuating a funeral home via the back door is to have a priest come up the front stairs. Catholics of a certain vintage, such as those with vague...
Myles Sheehan has two jobs that cause him to walk with death on a regular basis: One, he's a doctor specializing in the care of old people; two, he's a...
When my Uncle Joe died a few years ago, his Pentecostal sisters from northeastern Tennessee insisted that the casket remain open during the service, despite...
“Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t go to yours,” said Yogi Berra. You have to admit Yogi had a point, in his inimitable fashion. My...
I see them all the time, naked white crosses on the shoulder of the road, on the other side of the ditch, at that bad curve on the highway. There’s one on a...
The jackhammer blast of gunfire ripped me from my sleep. Normally, late-night street sounds on Route de Delmas in Port-au-Prince, Haiti are no more alarming...
In the first half of the 20th century, when the church at least seemed more organized, an inquiring Catholic could draw on an organizational chart of the...
One morning a several years back I had occasion to call a neighboring parish, the name of which is All Souls. Not having the number handy, I dialed information...
The Day of the Dead, November 2, is a time of cemetery and church visits, home altars to the dead, special foods—including candy in the shape of skulls and...
