These days, I find myself mindlessly crossing to the other side of the street if I see someone proceeding down the sidewalk I’m on. It’s a COVID-19 reflex I...
Religion
Essays explaining our faith, including stories about church teaching, Vatican documents, canon law, liturgical theology, and other Catholic topics.
I am not the most bible-literate minister. I can’t rattle off many verses by heart; I am living proof of the old joke that Catholics don’t often read their...
Recently I reviewed a newly published Bible study program. It was a creative effort: visually appealing pages, good quality paper, easy to use, with an...
When Catholics gather online to discuss hot-button topics such as innovations to the liturgy, restrictions on the Latin Mass, or the church’s teaching on moral...
Will they think I’m a whore? Will they call him a bastard? Will we be killed? I often wonder if these were the thoughts that ran through the mind of Mary, a...
“What is truth?” Pontius Pilate famously asked of Jesus. It’s a fair question, especially in our present media environment where facts have become increasingly...
If you attended parochial school some decades ago, you probably had a few Marys in your class. They would include, of course, Marias, Marians, Mary Annes, Mary...
Every Good Friday, Catholics hear a sermon about the crucifixion of Jesus. Perhaps that sermon may reference Temple leaders calling for Jesus’ crucifixion or...
Some time in the seventh century, Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, set down the story of Mary of Egypt, who once lived in the desert region of Judea that...
The short answer to this question is no. Gender is something that belongs to humans; God is beyond gender. But because we believe in a personal God, and people...