You can not, with any integrity or ability to persuade, say that you are pro life and then turn around in the next breath and deny the basic humanity and essential human dignity of whole groups of people. Archbishop Paul Coakley, who is our archbishop in the diocese where I live, was one of the seven authors of the USCCB’s statement on the murder of George Floyd that made this clear. That statement said in part: Too many communities around... Read more
Our Lady appeared to school children in Rwanda a few years before the Genocide. She told them about the coming genocide in very powerful language, telling them that the ground on which they stood would be red with blood. She also told them a way out. “Pray the Seven Sorrows” she told them. I had never heard of the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows of Mary until I read this story about the Rwandan genocide. The Marian visitation to Rwanda... Read more
It has been said that music soothes the savage beast. Music also elevates, soothes, inspires, motivates and excites us. This touching video shows a beautiful little boy’s reaction to the Moonlight Sonata the first time he hears it. It clearly overwhelmed him. Read more
Anytime you make a law, issue a ruling or give a legal opinion that constitutes law, you are setting events in motion that will have unintended consequences. The more absolute the language you use in making this law, the more harsh the unintended consequences are going to be. That statement is a simple fact of lawmaking. It expresses the hard and unavoidable reality of governance of any sort, including governance of the Catholic Church. A secondary reality of lawmaking is... Read more
I guess I’m fascinated with the effect music has on living things. This video shows an elderly elephant’s reaction to classical music. The elephant is blind in one eye and has limited vision in the other. Read more
According to the human rights group Open Doors, the spread of COVID in Africa, is causing an increase in the persecution of Christians. From Crux: Open Doors, a leading charity working to help persecuted Christians around the world, says the pandemic has also created more opportunities for persecutors to target believers where they are already vulnerable, leaving them even more exposed. “Though many factors determine the vulnerability of populations to Christian persecution and to COVID-19, a common thread between the... Read more
The definition of insanity is to keep on doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Albert Einstein My colleague Sean Dailey published a gutsy post recently in which he addressed the 800 pound gorilla in the pro life room. That gorilla is none other than the pro life movement’s abject failure to actually achieve anything meaningful in the fight to save babies from abortion. This failure is even more stark when we consider that it... Read more
Rudyard Kipling’s son was killed in World War I. Afterwards, Kipling wrote the poem Gethsemane. This poem has become deeply meaningful to me. It has enhanced and deepened my understanding of what Our Lord suffered at His Gethsemane more than any sermon or homily I have ever heard. There are many Gethsemanes in our lives. One of the hardest is when we face our own death. But I think for any parent by far the deepest and darkest Gethsemane is... Read more
Every mother who ever went to the airport to see her son or daughter off to war … Every mother who ever sat beside her child’s bed while the chemo dripped into the port in their chest … Every mother who ever buried a son or daughter who was murdered by a random stranger, in a mass shooting, or, perhaps worse, by a family member … Every mother who ever grieved over the unjust cruelties visited on her innocent baby... Read more
I saw a sweet photo of the first day of school in one of our diocesan parishes this week. The kids were sitting, every other desk, wearing their masks, all neat and pretty in their uniforms while the parish priest stood talking to them in his mask. The comments under this photo were full of thumbs up and heart emojis and the verbiage was a chorus of awwwws. My first thought when I looked at this photo was “I hope... Read more
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