Category: Columns

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Bishop Robert Barron

Shakespeare and the fading Catholic world

Last week the world marked the 400th anniversary of the death of the greatest writer in the English language and one of the three or four most significant artists the human race has produced. William Shakespeare simply contains so much.

In the manner of Dante, Homer, Michelangelo, James Joyce, and Aquinas, he seems to encompass the whole: every texture of feeling, every nuance of thought, the tragedy of sin, the most exquisite longings of the soul, the most confounding confusions, heaven, hell, and everything in between.

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Fr. Donald Lange

How do you spell love? M-o-t-h-e-r

In Isaiah 49:15 Isaiah asks “Can a mother forget her baby, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.”

This passage praises mothers as symbols of amazing compassion, never forgetting their beloved children. Pope Francis said that a mother is concerned “above all about the health of her children. She cares for them with great and tender love the way Mary, our spiritual, heavenly mother, cares for us.”

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Julianne Nornberg

Learning the meaning of trust

Everyday Faith column by Julianne Nornberg

Today I found a marble while doing the laundry. There it was, blue and shiny among the grey folds of my son’s sweatshirt.

My heart leaped as I picked it up and admired its beauty, thinking about how Michael would smile when I showed him his lost treasure.

But just as suddenly as I found it, the marble slipped from my fingers and bounced into the dusty unknown beneath the hot water heater. Sighing in defeat after peering into the darkness, I shrugged and continued with my work.

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Tony Magliano

Moving from ‘just war’ to ‘just peace’ strategy

For the first 300 years of Christianity, followers of the nonviolent Jesus — imitating his example — practiced total nonviolence.

But after Christianity was legalized and later made the official religion of the Roman Empire, Christians began fighting for the empire. And sadly, Christians have been fighting for empires ever since.

The “just war” theory was developed to offer criteria — like protecting civilians from attack — that had to be met before war could be theoretically morally justified and continued. Most unfortunately, this led to the Catholic Church’s abandonment of total Christ-like nonviolence.

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Bishop Robert Barron

Why you should read The Great Divorce

In my capacity as regional bishop of the Santa Barbara pastoral region, which covers two entire counties north of Los Angeles, I am obliged to spend a good deal of time in the car.

To make the long trips a bit easier, I have gotten back into the habit of listening to audio books. Just recently, I followed, with rapt attention, a book that I had read many years ago but which I had, I confess, largely forgotten: C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce.

The inspiration for this theological fantasy is the medieval idea of the refrigerium, the refreshment or vacation from Hell granted to some of the souls abiding there.

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Sr. Constance Veit, LSP

In this month of mothers

Guest Column

On May 8 we celebrate Mother’s Day, and as Catholics we dedicate the whole month to our heavenly mother, Mary.

And so, May is a natural time to reflect on the irreplaceable role of mothers and all women in our lives.

Prophetic words

In the weeks following our appearance at the Supreme Court, several women who write about Catholic spirituality mentioned prophetic words of Blessed Paul VI to women in reference to our case — words uttered over 50 years ago, but which are, perhaps, more relevant today than ever.

“At this moment when the human race is undergoing so deep a transformation, women impregnated with the spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid mankind in not falling,” Paul VI said at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council.

He continued with this urgent plea: “Women of the entire universe, whether Christian or non-believing, you to whom life is entrusted at this grave moment in history, it is for you to save the peace of the world.”

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George Weigel

The best nuncio we’ve had thus far

The announcement that Archbishop Christophe Pierre will succeed Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò as Apostolic Nuncio to the United States is an opportunity to pay tribute to a courageous churchman who has served Catholicism, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis in an exemplary way during his tenure in Washington.

I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and working with each of the nuncios in Washington since full diplomatic relations were established between this country and the Holy See under President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II.

And at the risk of embarrassing him, I have to say that I consider Archbishop Viganò to have been the best of them all thus far.

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Jean Mueller

Alleviating concerns of adult children

I know most of the time children are writing in to you to ask questions about their aging parent. Well, this is the opposite.

I am a 79-year-old mother who is being “smothered” by my children. All of a sudden they think I can’t do anything on my own. They think I should stop driving and that I should sell my house; the list goes on and on.

My husband passed away several years ago and I have been just fine on my own. I feel I am in good health and really just want them to stop worrying about me. Do you have any suggestions? (From a mother in Portage)

You are obviously a very good parent and are so blessed to have such caring, concerned children. I know several others who would love to have this kind of attention from their children.

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Bishop Robert Barron

Miracles from Heaven and suffering

As any apologist worth his/her salt will tell you, the great objection to the proposition that God exists is the fact of innocent suffering.

If you want a particularly vivid presentation of this complaint, go on YouTube and look up Stephen Fry’s disquisition on why he doesn’t believe in God. (Then right afterward, please, do look at my answer to Fry).

How can God allow suffering?

But the anguished question of an army of non-believers remains: how could an all-loving and all-powerful God possibly allow the horrific suffering endured by those who simply don’t deserve it? Say all you want, these critics hold, about God’s plan and good coming from evil, but the disproportion between evil and the benefits that might flow from it simply rules out the plausibility of religious faith.

The skilled and experienced apologist will also tell you that, in the face of this problem, there is no single, unequivocal “answer,” no clinching argument that will leave the doubter stunned into acquiescence. The best approach is to walk slowly around the issue, in the manner of the phenomenologists, illuminating now this aspect, now that.

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Fr. Donald Lange

Make each day an Earth Day by respecting creation

For some astronauts, an unexpected result of their participation in the space program was a deepening of their faith in God.

Frank Borman was commander of the first space crew to travel beyond Earth’s orbit. Looking down on Earth from 250,000 miles away, he radioed back a message, quoting Genesis 1: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth.”

He later added, “After viewing Earth from space, I experienced an enormous feeling that there had to be a power greater than any of us, that there was a God and a beginning.”

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