Once many years ago, a couple I was close friends with was having marital problems. For the first (and only) time in my life, I found myself frequently playing the role of telephone confessor and therapist for each of them—I’m quite sure that neither was aware that I was doing this with the other. The phone calls became so frequent that one evening as I talked to the male in the relationship, the woman beeped in on call waiting. Toward the... Read more
The earth is round. Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election for President and Vice President of the United States. The election was not stolen, rigged, or fixed. These are facts. They are demonstrable and irrefutable. These are the opening lines in Smartmatic’s 2.7 billion dollar lawsuit, filed earlier this month, against Fox News, several of Fox’s television personalities, and two of former President Trump’s lawyers. In a culture that has moved inexorably... Read more
Three years ago, for the first time since 1945, Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day fell on the same day. This year, Valentine’s Day falls on the last Sunday before Lent begins on Wednesday. Perhaps someone is trying to tell us that Valentine’s Day and Lent belong together. My lovely wife Jeanne and I have had occasional conversations over the years about Lent that have, gradually, caused me to think differently about my least favorite liturgical season. It all started early... Read more
One of the many things I enjoy about the teaching profession is creating new courses. A friend and colleague from the political science department (who is also a Dominican priest) and I are in the early stages of planning a new, team-taught course called “Faith and Doubt” that we plan to teach in the Spring 2022 semester. As anyone who reads this blog occasionally knows, the importance of doubt to a vibrant and living faith is one of my favorite... Read more
Today is the first day of the impeachment trial of former President Donald J. Trump in the United States Senate, the second such trial in thirteen months. Five weeks ago tomorrow, the very same Capitol building in which the trial is being held was stormed, occupied, and desecrated by a white mob of insurrectionists with one goal in mind—to stop the certification by Congress of the results of last November’s election result for President and Vice President. It’s a good... Read more
I am not a complainer by nature. My wife, my family, and my friends would attest to this. I’m an optimist at heart, a glass-half-full sort of guy. I’m like the kid from the joke who explains why he is digging through a pile of horseshit by saying that “there must be a pony in here somewhere.” I will admit that my native optimism has been challenged more seriously than usual over the past year—but most of the time I... Read more
It is not surprising, given what 2020 was like, that the most viewed post on my blog last year (by an almost 2 to 1 margin) was about the coronavirus. More specifically, it is about the strangeness of teaching a course called “Apocalypse,” a course that ended with the students assigned to read a novel about a world-wide pandemic, during a world-wide pandemic. The Coronavirus, the Apocalypse, and the Book of Revelation Read more
I am sure that I’m not the only person who has spent noticeably more time on social media during the past year than I did before pandemic shut down. I justify my time on Facebook by explaining that it generates more traffic on my blog than any other platform on which I share my essays (although I definitely use Facebook for more than that). I can’t account for the amount of time I waste on Twitter in the same way,... Read more
When we first moved to Rhode Island in the middle 1990s for my new teaching position at Providence College, Jeanne landed a position as the office manager in the Admissions office at the college. She bonded with her boss, the Director of Admissions immediately. This was not surprising, since Bill was a New Yorker through and through just as Jeanne is. Bill had little tolerance for inefficiency or indirectness. One of Jeanne’s favorite Bill quotes: “If I ask you what... Read more
The #2 post on this blog in popularity in 2020 was published in February. I wrote it a few months before that, but on the advice of some trusted friends and colleagues, put it on the shelf to wait for the “right time.” The abortion issue remains front and center in political and social debates. Many of former President Donald Trump’s Christian followers cited his supposed pro-life position as the primary reason they supported him. At the same time, others... Read more
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