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Category: Reflection

Catholic women: witnesses of peace

“Even in the face of serious social discrimination, holy women have acted ‘freely,’ strengthened by their union with Christ. …In every age and in every country we find many ‘perfect’ women (cf. Prov. 31:10) who, despite persecution, difficulties and discrimination,...

Richard John Neuhaus on obedience to the pope

One of the alarming aspects about the sometimes overwhelming resistance by conservative Catholics against Pope Francis is that they are not only putting their political and religious ideologies above the Church, but they are—unwittingly or not, and apparently without awareness...

May we be profoundly shaken

For the past couple of weeks I have taken up Pope Francis’s recent encouragement that we read his encyclical Laudato Si. I’m ashamed to say that I’d never read it before, but I decided that now is as good a...

Masks Are Not a Symbol of Fear

Two recent viral videos that circulated on Twitter recently underscored just how divisive mask-wearing has become. The videos themselves might elicit embarrassment-by-proxy and certainly aren’t reflective of everyone who chooses not to wear a mask, but these videos are emblematic...

Mercy for me, but not for thee

“At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them—in this case the...

We will be judged on this

 I was in prison and you visited me. — Matthew 25:36 In Victor Hugo’s masterpiece Les Miserables, the protagonist Jean Valjean is released on parole and given a yellow identification paper that said to all he met that he was...

Is this a divine punishment?

I think it’s completely natural for believers to look at this pandemic and the profound suffering it is causing and ask themselves “why?” The Catechism calls the experience of suffering and evil a “scandal” before going on to say, “If...