A reflection on the Sunday readings for January 24, 2021 — the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time In normal circumstances, writing a homily or reflection based on the call of Jonah or the call of Andrew, Simon, James, and John would not be a very difficult task. But we are not living in normal...
“Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenceless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing...
Nine years ago I helped found a pro-life pregnancy center and discovered, in the process, that doing so successfully was very slow going. Through that experience, I gained a very useful personal insight: because saving lives is something worth doing, it is worth accomplishing the right way, even if it takes longer than...
A reflection on the Sunday readings for January 24, 2021 — the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time In normal circumstances, writing a homily or reflection based on the call of Jonah or the call of Andrew, Simon, James, and John would not be a very difficult task. But we are not living in normal...
“Among the vulnerable for whom the Church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenceless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing...
Nine years ago I helped found a pro-life pregnancy center and discovered, in the process, that doing so successfully was very slow going. Through that experience, I gained a very useful personal insight: because saving lives is something worth doing, it is worth accomplishing the right way, even if it takes longer than...
“Christ is our peace,” says St. Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians (2:14), but peace eludes us. Our quest to uproot injustice inevitably reveals more deep-seated injustices even while new ones continue to crop up. The problem is sin. Christians strive to reduce suffering in the world, but we know that true...
In his inaugural address today, President Joe Biden surprised me by quoting St. Augustine. (I expected him to quote Scripture, which he also did.) Notably, he called him “a saint in my Church,” referring to the Catholic Church. That reference – combined with the fact that he attended Mass this morning at St....
I am an avid reader, and sometimes I even gloat about being a speed-reader. I often take pride in my rapid pace of completing books and crossing them off my reading list. Pope Francis’s Let Us Dream was different. While reading the pope’s most recent book, I frequently paused when I came across...
Content Warning: This interview contains descriptions of clerical sexual abuse shared by a survivor. This content may be difficult for some readers. I am honored to share this interview of my friend Mark Joseph Williams, LCSW, with Eileen Quinn Knight, Ph.D., originally published in Profiles in Catholicism. With so much focus on the...
Following the 1976 US presidential election, conservative political fundraisers Paul Weyrich, Richard Viguerie, and Terry Dolan saw an opportunity: according to one poll, 70% of “evangelical Christians”—fifty to sixty million people— had not voted.[1] Jimmy Carter snagged the Oval Office by under two million ballots. That gave them an idea. These men, and...
Earlier today, Robert Christian of the Catholic website Millennial published an interview he did with Mike Lewis about the reasons for starting Where Peter Is. In the interview, Mike discusses the events in the Church and the shifts in the Catholic media landscape that led to a need for an outlet dedicated to...
Today, as we honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the United States, we can be certain that Pope Francis is joining with us in spirit from the Vatican. Over the weekend, the Atlanta Hawks of the National Basketball Association (NBA) gave Francis a personalized jersey emblazoned with Dr. King’s initials...
Last summer, I had an opportunity to address the small Catholic campus ministry of Western Carolina University (WCU) on the topic of racism and my perspectives as a Black Catholic in the United States. Hoping to talk about the heartbreaking stories surrounding George Floyd, the resurgence of the case for Breonna Taylor, and...
Fr Satish is travelling this week, so we won’t be publishing one of his homilies today. Here is a link to the readings today. If you are looking for a reflection to listen to, here are a couple possibilities. The USCCB has posted a video reflection. The Vatican will have posted Pope Francis’s...
“If I have no contact whatsoever with God in my life, then I cannot see in the other anything more than the other, and I am incapable of seeing in him the image of God. But if in my life I fail completely to heed others, solely out of a desire to be...
Yesterday, Crux reported on the strong words of Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn in response to the rioters at the US Capitol in Washington on January 6. Here is our translation of his full January 15 statement: I can’t get the images of the Storming of the Capitol in Washington out of my mind. How...
According to a recent blog post by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, popularly known as “Fr Z,” his time living in the Diocese of Madison is coming to a close. Zuhlsdorf is a traditionalist priest of the Italian diocese of Velletri-Segni near Rome who resides in the Wisconsin diocese, where he was granted faculties to...
Book review of The Church’s Best-Kept Secret: A Primer on Catholic Social Teaching Mark Shea New City Press Earlier this month, Catholic writer and evangelist Mark Shea penned a mea culpa for the times he has put political ideology above the teaching of the Church and—as a “public figure in Catholic circles”—influenced others...
It’s no secret that certain quotes that are falsely attributed to St. Francis of Assisi have worked their way into popular consciousness. Most people realize that the famous Peace Prayer of St. Francis was likely written in the 19th century, and that the quote “Preach the Gospel. If necessary, use words,” is a...
For anyone trying to minimize the effects of the reckless and irresponsible ‘Stop the Steal’ rhetoric of certain reactionary Catholic public figures, let Wednesday’s deadly events in Washington, D.C. be a wakeup call. Make no mistake: the potent effects of these blogging, podcasting, and tweeting heads have been and are still rippling ‘on...
In recent years, we’ve witnessed members of religious and political circles repeatedly engage in a form of rhetoric known as “whataboutism.” This is a technique of responding to an accusation or difficult question with posing a counteraccusation or pointing out a flaw of the opposing side. In the campaign leading up to the...
“There are ancient limitations from which fairy-stories offer a sort of escape, and old ambitions and desires (touching the very roots of fantasy) to which they offer a kind of satisfaction and consolation. Some are pardonable weaknesses or curiosities: such as the desire to visit, free as a fish, the deep sea; or...
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