Last month, Pope Francis Generation passed the first anniversary of the podcast and now we’re beginning Season Four! This felt like a good occasion to revisit our mission and pillars. A few weeks ago I was listening to another Catholic...
As Lent 2021 began, many joked that they felt the penitential season had not ended since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. While well-meaning, this humor belies the profound stress, change, fear, sickness, and loss that has transpired...
I was reminiscing recently with a friend of mine, a consecrated layperson living the vocation of virginity, about Pope Francis’s visit to New York City in September 2015. Although I got within a mere city block of the Holy Father,...
I’ve often thought about the benefits of a seminary program where aspiring priests would be required to spend a semester helping a family get ready for Sunday Mass every week. If nothing else, the experience would hopefully help our clergy...
Yesterday, Bishop Rick Stika of Knoxville, TN, posted on Twitter that he had “Received a letter from Cardinal Sarah informing me that, according to a circular letter issued on August 15th, with the approval of the Holy Father, the local...
A reflection on the Sunday readings for November 29, 2020 — the First Sunday of Advent This is the first Advent we have observed during a pandemic and this will be our first pandemic Christmas. What if I told you that...
This has been a Thanksgiving like no other. A national holiday that we otherwise celebrate with abandon is being observed with utmost caution, restraint, devoid of large family gatherings, and perhaps, even alone. A pandemic Thanksgiving – it almost sounds...
The Christian story began amidst great turmoil: The passion, suffering, and crucifixion of Jesus; the continuing doubts, even after the Resurrection; the long and brutal persecution; and the dispersal of believers across the Roman Empire. This was the context of...
The pandemic has revealed how inadequate our virtual lifestyles are for sustaining strong communities. Yes, the lockdowns, capacity limits, and other precautions were necessitated by a charity towards others in our society, especially the elderly and other vulnerable populations, and...
When the pandemic hit the United States earlier this year, bishops across the country made the necessary but unprecedented decision to dispense the faithful from their traditional obligation to attend Mass every Sunday. Six months later, we are slowly beginning...
The COVID-19 pandemic is easing in some areas, increasing elsewhere, and settling into an ongoing reality everywhere. At the same time, the United States is facing a reckoning with our terrible legacy of racism following the killing of George Floyd...
Across the country, bishops are gradually beginning to allow public Masses again. This process will be slow-going, and the dioceses that are reopening have extended the dispensation of the faithful from their obligation to attend Sunday Mass. How public liturgies...
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