The question occasionally arises from an inquisitive parishioner: “What do priests do all day?” It’s not an unreasonable question from those who only see their...
Religion
Essays explaining our faith, including stories about church teaching, Vatican documents, canon law, liturgical theology, and other Catholic topics.
What are you looking for? Jesus asks this question of his disciples, those who propose to fall in line behind him. It’s a question we might ask more than we do...
How do you wish others well during the festive season: Do you say, “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”? What do you think if someone wishes you a “Good Yule”...
Some years back, I watched a discussion unfold on social media about the devil. A Catholic woman anxiously asked her friends for prayers that could be used to...
I typed the question into the search engine with sincere curiosity: What does the word “O” mean? This wasn’t work avoidance—although I’m a master at that...
Whenever the prophet Malachi pops up at Mass, I think of a dark comedy from 1992 called Death Becomes Her. The former is a bleak prophet with nothing good to...
On a brisk winter day in the Kingdom of Sicily, around the year 1250, two young men made a journey to the Shrine of Montevergine. The local villagers, seeing...
In Fratelli Tutti (On Fraternity and Social Friendship) Pope Francis calls Christians “to recognize Christ himself in each of our abandoned or excluded...
Marisela, a young Mexican-American woman, was going through a period of debilitating anxiety and depression. “I was in such a bad state,” she said. “I kept on...
Giants, ghosts, and sea monsters. Demons and terrifying hybrid guardians. The Bible is teeming with monsters of all sorts, both those who live on Earth and...
