A preacher’s job is harder in the 21st-century United States than in many other places and times. Imagine attending a liturgy and hearing the gospel preached...
Sounding Board
Dive into our Sounding Board essays, where U.S. Catholic readers and writers tackle controversial church topics through reader surveys and opinion pieces.
May his memory be a blessing. I found myself repeating these words—a rabbinic phrase that originates in the Jewish tradition—to a Jewish colleague as we...
A piece of wisdom that both my parents and in-laws infused in my wife and me is the paradox of choice: You are free to choose, but you are not free from the...
One of the most popular holiday pastimes among U.S. Christians is hand-wringing about whether we’ve all forgotten that Christmas is a celebration of Christ...
How would you feel about someone skateboarding in a church? I imagine many of us instantly recoil at the thought. But what if it was a church that was no...
In my years of counseling, teaching, and working alongside Catholics of all ages through parish work and hospital chaplaincy, I’ve come to realize that a...
Talk of social media seems to be almost inescapable at this point. During the COVID-19 pandemic, social media became one of the last lifelines connecting many...
A researcher by training, I immediately ordered a short stack of books when I found out I was pregnant with my first child. For eight months, Heidi Murkoff’s...
When my husband and I brought each of our babies for baptism, the church posed two questions: “What name do you give your child?” and “What do you ask of God’s...
When a young woman in an Alabama parish heard that the Jesuits of St. Louis were organizing a solidarity stand vigil, she was inspired to arrange something...
