A few years ago, my boyfriend and I went to the Christmas bazaar at our local Catholic parish. We admired the sugar cookies and crocheted ornaments but didn’t...
Parish life
Discover U.S. Catholic articles on parish life that highlight community building, inclusion, and justice in everyday Catholic ministry.
Sounding Board is one person’s take on a many-sided subject and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of U.S. Catholic, its editors, or the Claretians. The...
Mary Jane Murphy (who asked to use a pseudonym to protect her new parish job) worked in parish ministry for decades without hearing of the ministerial...
Believe it or not, it can be hard to find a good seat at Sunday Mass. Unlike most churches I’ve attended across the United States in the past decade, where...
I have been a Catholic for seven years; however, as a parent of gay children and a child with autism, I struggle at times with remaining Catholic. As an...
Esther, a lector in one of the parishes in South Bend, Indiana, was recently accosted by a white woman who told her to stop reading at Mass. Not directly...
Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, only 42 percent of the population surveyed in a Pew Research Center poll responded that being part of a Catholic...
When I was in divinity school, all students were required to take a class titled “Negotiating Ministerial Boundaries,” a multi-day long certification earned...
Listen on: Apple | Google | Spotify Can women preach in churches? People may answer this question in different ways, depending on their denomination or faith...
Bob Dylan was singing “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” And, circa 1968, in the Long Island, New York, parish of St. Anne’s in Garden City, they were. Sunday...
