Catholic Voices

First-person reflections on scriptural interpretation, theology, and Catholic social teaching.

Never again, yet again

   Unless action replaces delay, our denunciations of genocide are nothing but talk. Darfur has become a marquee global tragedy with celebrities such...

Semper ubi sub ubi

 If you don't understand that, you're gonna love the new, old Latin Mass. The old German pastor of my first parish, Father Albert Henkel, was...

Code blue

The patient is ailing, the prognosis is poor. It’s the nation’s major medical emergency. There is an epidemic running through the nation’s...

Cracks in the system

Deferring infrastructure maintenance for war spending builds a bridge to nowhere. After watching coverage of the minneapolis-St. Paul I-35W bridge collapse...

How green is your faith?

We should honor God the Father by caring for our Mother Earth. A recent dispute among Christians brought the gospel to the front page once again in August. At...

No more CARE packages

Instead of dumping grain in poverty-stricken regions, we should be investing cash. Bags of wheat or rice, stamped "U.S.A." and pitched onto a...

More than words

Rather than threaten our Christian faith, exploring the language and spiritual practices of other religious traditions may instead make us better Catholics...

Bank robbery

Forgive us our bad debts–many of which were made fraudulently to developing countries. Ecuador's new president, Rafael Correa, pledged during his...

Not all roads lead to Rome

The diverse challenges of a struggling world need local solutions from a flexible church. Among the theologians of the Second Vatican Council, the name of...