My fondest memories of summer are the times spent with my favorite aunt at her cottage nestled in the Adirondack Mountains.
As a middle school teacher, she had a gift for relating to kids in a way very different from parents, like a wise friend or a trusted confidante.
In recent years, I have written about the struggles of the Little Sisters of the Poor to provide the kind of health coverage that respects their faith and moral values.
I’ve also written about a car dealership in Minnesota that did not want to provide abortion-inducing drugs to its employees. “It has long been my conviction to run my business according to the teachings of my faith,” said Doug Erickson of Hastings Chevrolet.
These are just two instances where religious freedom has been imperiled.
One way to protect religious freedom is for President Donald Trump to sign an executive order promoting religious freedom.
In my Editor’s View column in the March 3 issue of the Catholic Herald, I encouraged people to join a prayer campaign to support the Little Sisters of the Poor.
These Sisters — who primarily care for the elderly — were involved in fighting for their religious beliefs. They refused to go along with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate requiring them to provide contraceptive services for their employees.
Many people have been praying for the Little Sisters of the Poor and others involved in the Zubik v. Burwell case being argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. Their prayers seem to have been answered.
An order of Sisters has been quietly caring for the elderly for many years. Founded by Sr. Jeanne Jugan in 1839 in France, the Little Sisters of the Poor now serve in over 30 countries of the world.
The Sisters’ website describes their mission “to offer the neediest elderly of every race and religion a home where they will be welcomed as Christ, cared for as family, and accompanied with dignity until God calls them to himself.”
A few weeks ago, I received a New Year’s card that read, “This will be the best year yet.”
We Little Sisters of the Poor are fervently praying that 2016 will be remembered as the year we were able to return to our quiet lives at the service of the elderly after a happy resolution to our long legal struggle over the HHS Contraceptive Mandate.
As Ash Wednesday approached, I was thinking that this was going to be a Lent like most others. And then came the news on February 11!
As a youngster I loved Christmas. I thought everyone did. But when I was 15, a frail, old woman in a wheelchair punched a big hole in my naïve assumptions about “the most wonderful time of the year.”
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As a child I idolized my grandfather. One of my fondest memories is of him taking us to a neighborhood restaurant that had a little juke box in each booth. He would give my sisters and me a few quarters and we’d flip to the oldies to play Grandpa’s favorites.
From time to time I still hear those classics playing in my memory from “Moon River” and “Doctor Zhivago” to “Love is a Many Splendored Thing.”
As the 20th century came to a close, the United Nations celebrated the International Year of Older Persons, heralding the vision of “A Society for All Ages.”
The first years of the new millennium have been anything but that, with the abandonment of frail seniors during natural disasters from New Orleans to Japan, the legalization of assisted suicide in several U.S. states and foreign countries, and political rhetoric that seems to consider the growing population of seniors merely as a drain on our health care system and the federal budget. Is this the society for all ages we envisioned in 1999?
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Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
On the weekend of November 21st and 22nd we will be faced with an unique opportunity to assist, once again, some very specific brothers and sisters in need, by way of the national “Share your Faith Campaign” (also known generally as the CCHD Collection). With this year’s portion of the funds collected for national impact we, as a diocese, will be reaching out to the elderly and sick of our society, particularly those served by the Little Sisters of the Poor.
