If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it still make noise? If a person lifts their praises and petitions to God without...
In the Pews
One of the greatest influences in my life has been Catholic education. In my Catholic parochial grade school, I first learned what it meant to be a follower of...
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...
Sometimes grace breaks through when you break a pattern or, in workplace parlance, when you “pivot.” In 2015, the nonprofit I worked for “pivoted” from funding...
My father was seriously ill several times in his last years of life. He could have received the sacrament of the anointing of the sick when facing surgery for...
The evil of clericalism, explains Pope Francis in a December 2016 sermon, happens whenever clerics distance themselves from laypeople, especially those who are...
Dorina Pena describes herself as a “church lady supreme.” A founding member of the young adult ministry at St. Vincent de Paul parish in Philadelphia, 38-year...
My mother didn’t want to homeschool us, but my father insisted. When she resisted, he manipulated her into continuing. I pondered this while I read an article...
Although vocations to the priesthood continue to decline in the Catholic Church, Augustinian Father Anthony Pizzo balks at referring to this phenomenon as the...
