Young adults do not so much need a meaning in life as an experience of living. Despite or because of our cosmopolitan culture and global economy, too many young adults get caught up in a small circle of co-workers and friends while communicating mostly about small comings and goings. Meanwhile, many young adults are disaffected from churches. Could it be perhaps because, at least in part, churches don’t offer an experience of living? Some churches deliver moral standards and dogmas... Read more

Political commentators derisively call it The Chicago Way. They refer to our machine-style politics. Its motto, of course, is Ubi est mea? (Where’s mine?) It is accompanied by corruption and then jail time for some, including in recent years a Congressman and a Governor. By contrast, two commentators point to a positive Chicago Way, our style of being Catholic. “As U.S. Catholic histories continue to be written, the Catholic Midwest in general and Chicago in particular will highlight the emergence... Read more

Doctor: We have a correct diagnosis of your problem. We don’t need a CT scan, an MRI or more blood labs. Your illness, though it sounds serious, is like a slow-moving turtle. No procedure we perform, though some are available, will slow it any further. It will never bother you in your lifetime. Patient: That’s great. Goodbye. This conversation doesn’t occur, says Atul Gawande, a surgeon and author of best-selling Being Mortal (Henry Holt, 2014). Doctors are “far more concerned... Read more

The Vatican-sponsored World Synod on the Family continues this fall and a companion Family Congress (www.worldmeeting2015.org), in which Pope Francis will participate, occurs September 22-27, 2015 in Philadelphia. So far, most reports about these events focus on internal church matters like annulment procedures and inviting the divorced to the Eucharist. These topics carry some importance but are hardly the sum of family life concerns. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the most famous piece of social science analysis. Daniel... Read more

Your Working Catholic blogger frequently drives through Chicago’s abandoned stockyards on the way to the ballpark, but the area doesn’t visually tell much of a story. Back in the day, 50,000 people worked on the killing floors, where each hour 600 animals were slaughtered and packaged. That history is the subject of Slaughterhouse by Dominic Pacyga (University of Chicago Press, 2015). Pacyga knows the old stockyards well; he once worked there and he has talked with plenty of old-timers and... Read more

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) is a standard on high school summer reading lists; that is, for those high schools that still expect education to occur beyond the classroom. It was first published in serial form in 1905 for a Kansas City weekly newspaper, Appeal To Reason. The author’s intention was to highlight the exploitation of immigrant workers in Chicago’s stockyards. The book’s positive outcome, however, was directed elsewhere. As Sinclair put it: “I aimed at the public’s heart,... Read more

College students who this summer land an internship, experience a mission trip, do academic research or go on an expedition are privileged. Most are grateful for the opportunity. Many of their fellow students will spend the summer on ordinary workaday jobs; some of whom simply continue with the part-time, even full-time job they have during semesters. Some of those jobs are appropriately weather-related: on landscaping, as a caddy, in the tourist sector and the like. Others will be in retail... Read more

The Working Catholic: by Bill Droel It was cold in the parking lot after the funeral, but I lingered long enough to chat with an elderly priest. “We were about to get our first assignments out of seminary,” he began. “A teacher gave me some advice: Stay away from Falls; he’s a race man. Well, I was bold in those days and I replied: No, he’s a man of justice.” The funeral, celebrated at St. John of the Cross in... Read more

There is resurgence among U.S. Catholic young adults in the social mission of their faith. They are admittedly small in number. It is encouraging nonetheless. They are motivated through college volunteer programs, concern about the environment, the Pope Francis effect, economic realities in their jobs and careers, issues around race and gender, and more. (The social fervor among Catholic young adults can be found in other denominations, religions and in other settings.) Perhaps it is time to briefly consider styles... Read more

Tim Shriver is not patronizing. He easily could be because his inspiring book, Fully Alive (Farrar, Straus, 2014), is about disabled people. He profiles several remarkable people and even suggests that the intellectually disabled can change society—not only spiritually, but even politically. I had to read a section and then put the book down for at least a couple hours; the story compels that type of reflection. Shriver keeps it real. Treveon Wimberly, Shriver tells us, cannot talk in a... Read more