by guest writer Judy Bratten One of my favorite gifts last Christmas came from our friend Paul in Kansas. Only four years earlier, I had given him a one-day, rapid rise course in whole grain breadmaking. Now he bakes his own breads from his own grain, organically grown on golden Kansas fields. The gift was a loaf of dark, moist bread and an article on bread making, the old-fashioned way, including instructions on producing homegrown yeast. As I... Read more
by Gregory Moomjy As an opera lover, I am quite accustomed to musical settings of religious texts. In fact, scenes like the Easter hymn from Cavalleria Rusticana, or the final prayer for Mary and her court in Maria Stuarda are some of the most awe inspiring and uplifting moments in opera. The same thing can even be said for the Eucharist at the end of the first act of Parsifal, even though—in typical Wagnerian fashion—it can drag on. All... Read more
by guest writer Hope Contentious Call me crazy, and it will be true. Call me Talitha Coum and you will repeat what God told me. Bipolar Disorder. Type One. That’s what I was diagnosed with months before my 18th birthday. That’s the disease that landed me in the hospital off and on for most of a year. The one that brought me to my knees with depression, the one that shot me to the moon with mania. That’s the one... Read more
Press Release In 1988, while gang life in Los Angeles ran rampant, a Jesuit priest named Father Gregory Boyle—Father Greg, Father G, G-dog, G, Pops, and Dad, as he is affectionately called—bicycled through East Los Angeles, attempting to convince gang members to leave their former lives behind. Where others saw common criminals, Father Boyle saw individuals who were bereft of any hope or vision for a better life. This inspired him to create Homeboy Industries, a safe haven where gang... Read more
by guest writer Andrew Reising States around the country have been passing some truly restrictive abortion laws, seemingly for the purpose of having those laws challenged, in the hopes of overturning Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court. But in Alabama’s new law, there are provisions that make many conservative pro-lifers feel like they have gone too far. Not only are the penalties laid out in the law extreme (something it shares with Georgia’s new law), but it contains no... Read more
by guest writer Alex Erickson Anyone who has followed Donald Trump’s rhetoric since he entered the presidential race in 2016 knows he loves hyperbole and his recent comments calling all abortions “executions” are no exception. Whatever the instance, Trump’s rhetoric does presumably what he wants it to do: stir up conversation. This is certainly the case with Theresa Brown’s latest article for CNN, where she sets out to “explore the misapprehensions” that Trump’s statement is based on. Unfortunately for her,... Read more
by guest writer Elizabeth Zeigler Today, on her feast day, I revel in a little-known fact about St. Katharine Drexel. Her name is commonplace on hospitals, schools, churches, missions, and college campuses. Her work for and reach to the most marginalized was undoubtedly tremendous. She was the embodiment of a missionary disciple. Hers was a life lived at the peripheries – despite, or perhaps because of, her family’s wealth – to meet and be with those most in need.... Read more
By guest writer Angela Himsel Every woman I know, including me, can legitimately say: “Me, Too.” But maybe the most famous of the “Me, Too” women couldn’t come forward and admit that she’d been sexually harassed or touched against her will. Instead, men wrote her narrative. They decided she wasn’t a victim of non-consensual sex; rather, she had been chosen for the most important job ever: to carry in her womb the Savior of mankind. And how could Mary say... Read more
By guest writer William M. Shea Now I bring in “knowing and knowledge” to bump up against believing and beliefs. I know both sin and suffering for I have done them both, but what shall I believe about them? Common usage of the terms knowing and believing amount to this: what you know you don’t need to believe; what you believe you don’t yet know. Simple, no? Add to this the fact that each of us knows very little... Read more
By guest writer William M. Shea The problem of belief and knowledge is not a mere “academic concern.” In fact the issue has been of paramount importance to me since I was a child. I can’t say now that is still unresolved for me because it has been resolved in good part for well over a decade. For fifty years, from the age of ten, the question of belief affected my self-understanding as a Catholic and a Christian, my religious... Read more
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