As I begin to write this, I’m sitting in the observation car of the California Zephyr. The time approaches 10 p.m., and the endless plains of Nebraska recede...
Wise Guides
Wise Guides essays explore how saints and holy figures offer wisdom for today. In each reflection, the author connects a historical person’s ministry to our modern spiritual and moral challenges.
We can borrow Vincent de Paul’s tough questions about how to best help those most in need. Turn away from the new iPhone and toward your neighbor. This is the...
Ten years ago, when I was a 14-year-old high school student, my religion teacher arranged for me to interview Father Patrick Ahearn, a leading expert on St...
For nearly 2,000 years, the chair of Peter has been occupied by a motley crew of saints and sinners. In the course of teaching church history in a seminary, I...
I had never heard of Father Augustus Tolton until I took a course in black Catholic history at Xavier University in New Orleans. I did not know that he had...
Mobile, Alabama in autumn feels mutable, sunshine floating down on its filigreed iron railings and azalea gardens, then, suddenly, dispiritingly humid. It’s...
“It is not surprising,” wrote the editors of U.S. Catholic in the intro to their April 1984 interview with Father Andrew Greeley, that he “is often heard to...
“To love God means to love all [God’s] children as brothers. Muslims and Jews know that when we don’t follow these demands, we betray our ideal as Christians.”...
To the well-known saint, the most important human right is the right to love. We live in a society that highly values perceived rights. People advocate for...
On my first visit to Guatemala, I stayed with a priest who brought me to the neighboring village of Santiago Atitlán, where he told me the story of Father Stan...
