December 4, 2023

A Maryknoll friend of mine and Orbis Press did us a service with a condensed version of several of Pope Francis’s published writings. In under 200 pages you can get the gist of ten major works of Francis’s papacy. The book is Fr. James Kroeger’s Walking with Pope Francis: The Official Documents in Ordinary Language The works that Fr. Jim walks through, in Latin and English titles, are: Lumen Fidei, The Light of Faith Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the... Read more

October 14, 2023

October 4 is the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, patron of ecologists. On that day this month Pope Francis went back to a major theme of his acclaimed 2015 environmental encyclical Laudato Si: On theCare for Our Common Home. In an apostolic exhortation, Laudate Deum (Praise God), the pope spoke to Catholics and the world about climate change, an issue of great concern to him. Francis is not alone among Church leaders in that concern. Previous popes, dating back... Read more

October 10, 2023

It’s common to read the New Testament for spiritual enlightenment and moral persuasion. One can also lower one’s sights and wonder about the political arena in which Jesus lived, worked, and suffered. That’s not as common, and when we do think that way, we tend to keep the two, Jesus and politics, apart from each other: “Render to Caesar Caesar’s due, and to God” … something else. Warren Carter rejects that separation and thinks a lot about politics in the... Read more

September 15, 2023

I have written about New Testament texts and the historical Jesus in the context of life in early first-century Palestine. (See here, here, and here for examples and links to more posts.) So I felt fortunate to discover a Bible scholar doing similar work in a broader context. Warren Carter studies New Testament writings in relation to the dominating Roman Empire. This post introduces the prolific author Warren Carter and his work. A following post will examine one work in... Read more

August 8, 2023

The news source Axios reports on young workers in Asia. They seem to be turning away from factory jobs in large numbers. A story that originates with the Wall Street Journal says brands like Lowe’s and Hasbro “are having a hard time recruiting and retaining younger [Asian] workers.” It’s a problem in places that include India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. This trend, if it continues, will have consequences for consumers worldwide.  Our multinational corporations will have to pay more either for... Read more

May 17, 2023

Christians say “Credo” and tell a story of God’s work on earth and in heaven. I tell the story again with the help of the Christian Creed. Credo, I believe, in One God, Father and Mother and blessed by many other names, who calls into being lands and peoples with all their strengths and beauty, who walks with us through joy and suffering on our pilgrim journey, faithful through our unfaithfulness and the tragedies of sin and death, schooling, disciplining... Read more

April 21, 2023

On Wirzba, This Sacred Life: Humanity’s Place in a Wounded World What is humanity’s purpose in this world? Or are we the end for which every other thing exists. Can we find purpose in the universe, given that science isn’t geared for anything like purpose? Or is competition for limited resources the rule for all life forms and for individuals within our species as well? Would the right answer to questions like these help turn around a world bent on... Read more

April 13, 2023

My parish makes a big deal out of what to call the two forms under which we receive Communion. When the bread and wine have been consecrated, can we still call them bread and wine? The consensus among parish leaders and teachers is that we cannot. Transubstantiation means that the bread is no longer bread, and the wine is no longer wine. In my parish we can say “form of bread” and “form of wine.” Without that technical language, we... Read more

April 3, 2023

On Thursday, March 30, the Church formally rejected the Doctrine of Discovery. I learned about the Doctrine of Discovery from a folksinger in Montana. Jack Gladstone, a member of the Blackfeet tribe is Montana’s official troubadour and storyteller. In regular performances in Glacier National Park he would often describe and censure this hateful doctrine for his mostly white audiences. I have written about Jack Gladstone before. Much earlier, in Catholic grade school, I learned about the “demarcation line” that Pope... Read more

March 28, 2023

When I was a child, Lent for me was a time to meditate on Jesus’ suffering. I was pretty good at it. I could imagine mountains of suffering far beyond what the Bible describes. And I could imagine loving Jesus all the more because of his extreme suffering for me. When it came to bearing up under his cross of suffering, Jesus rocked – in my imagination. What occasions this memory of my childhood? Two words from The Gospel for... Read more


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