A steady light: Pope Leo XIV's top five moments of 2025
"Lebanon needed this embrace." The words went out over a social media platform, made more poignant for the accompanying image of Pope Leo XIV consoling a weeping Lebanese woman. I couldn't help ...
To become a cherished 'little one,' reject the seat of honor
''When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor" (Lk 14:8). Okay, can we stipulate that a working and fully engaged pope probably does not have the ...
Parents, PLEASE: My seventh-grade religious ed students do not know the 'Our Father'
Several years into young motherhood, I volunteered to prepare parish second graders for their first Communion. The weekly classes with 18 children often felt like 45-minute exercises in humility, but ...
Charlie Kirk, Iryna Zarutska and the conversations we need to have
On Sept. 10, conservative activist Charlie Kirk, 31, was shot and killed during a speaking event in Utah. He leaves behind a wife and two very young children. Assassination is a tragedy for our country ...
Laying odds on papabili, and our vulgar church
''One of the good things about a Catholic church is that it isn't respectable...You can find anyone in it, from duchesses to whores, from tramps to kings." -- Dame Philippa Talbot, "In This ...
The best of Francis: Five unforgettable moments
As the world absorbs the news of the death of Pope Francis -- and before the ever-busy oddsmakers and deep insiders begin the game of papabile speculation that accompanies every papal death and conclave ...
We are naked before the strange humility of God
''After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree, the Lord God called to the man and asked him, 'Where are you?' He answered, 'I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was ...
Family and friends, the 2024 election and Thanksgiving
Beyond my usual list of things to be grateful for -- mercy, family, reasonable health, employment, the elders still among us and the children all around -- I am particularly thankful that none of our ...
