A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the Cathedral in San Francisco using water spray to keep homeless people from sleeping in the doorways of the Church at night. The archdiocese took a lot of grief over this—in my opinion, well-deserved—and eventually turned them off. Now I have come across a story (H/T to long time reader FRS!) about a nearby Catholic church, St. Boniface, that takes a very different approach to the homeless. According to the local... Read more
Yesterday, May 24, Archbishop Oscar Romero was beatified in San Salvador in a public ceremony attended by 250,000 people. I am without words: this is such a profound and moving moment that I am really unsure what to say. So instead, I want to present a florilegium in his honor. I begin with a photo of Romero taken moments after his assassination: I continue with a brief excerpt from the letter from Pope Francis read at the beatification ceremony: (more…) Read more
This Sunday (Mothers’ Day, coincidentally or not), a shocking juxtaposition appeared in my facebook feed, of the kind that somehow compels some response, even as I wonder how I can have the audacity to say anything at all. I suppose it’s because violence always deeply disturbs me, despite, or maybe because of, being so often at a loss. Almost the first thing I saw was this petition from Amnesty International demanding an abortion for a 10-year-old rape survivor in Paraguay... Read more
In June 2012, the blogosphere was rattled when Leah Libresco, a prominent atheist blogger known for her insatiable curiosity and staunch commitment to truth, announced that she had converted to Catholicism. A professional statistician and ardent lover of mathematics, Libresco arrived at faith through the use of reason. Beginning with the premise that morality is inherent in the natural order and discovered (rather than invented) by humans, she struggled to understand our faculty of conscience. How do we gain access... Read more
Here is a lovely quote from the folks at Daily Gospel Online, taken from the sermons of St. Anthony of Padua. It was included as the meditation on the healing of a leper by Jesus (Luke 5:12-16). I have highlighted the last paragraph, as this spoke quite strongly to me and resonates with the emphasis Pope Francis has put on Divine mercy. Oh! How I marvel at that hand! That “hand of my Beloved, of gold adorned with chrysolites” (Wsd... Read more
My heart pounded as I stepped off the plane and boarded the shuttle that would take me to the terminal. I could hardly believe that I was about to enter the country that once stood at the centre of humanity’s closest brush with nuclear war. This was a nation that, as an American growing up in Buffalo, NY, I’d always heard was bad, bad, bad; watching the six o’clock news as a kid in the 1990’s, I took the rafts... Read more
The People Wish to See Jesus: Reflections for those Who Teach By Pope Francis Translated by Michael O’Hearn The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2014 One of my favourite moments of the year is early autumn, when chestnuts are ripe, the summer heat is beginning to relent, and I enter a classroom filled with students eager to begin a new academic year. While inevitably nervous, I am always excited to meet the people whose paths will briefly intersect with mine; I also... Read more
Vox Nova is pleased to welcome the following guest post by reader Mike McG. Fifty American Catholics gathered in South Bend earlier this week to discuss Polarization in the U.S. Catholic Church: Naming the Wounds, Beginning to Heal. In an April 23rd post, this topic was introduced to Vox Nova readers and on April 27th, Vox Nova served as a portal for discussion of the opening addresses. Each of these posts generated comments well worth reading. The opening addresses are... Read more
In an article a couple of weeks ago entitled “This I Believe: Created in God’s Image,” a Jesuit brother of mine, Damian Torres-Botello, affirmed the dignity of all LGBTQ men and women. He also expressed his solidarity with them as a gay man, a man who fully accepts that he is gay and has been created in the image and likeness of God. He accepts that he is more than his skin color, his sexual orientation, or any of these other... Read more
Vox Nova is pleased to welcome the following guest post by reader Mike McG… At 4:30 Eastern today, April 27th, Notre Dame is opening a conference entitled Polarization in the U.S. Catholic Church: Naming the Wounds, Beginning to Heal. A full explanation is available at http://csrs.nd.edu/events/polarization/ Also, the conference has a Twitter feed: #UnaEcclesia. This thread serves as a forum for Vox Nova readers to watch the plenary presentations by live stream, and to comment on these plenary speeches given. Please plan to... Read more
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