At the Regina Coeli on Good Shepherd Sunday, Pope Francis reminds us that Jesus loves us without limit, giving His life for us. He prays that we may go meet the Lord and allow ourselves "to be welcomed and lifted up by the loving arms of our Good Shepherd ..read more

‘Is forgiveness and being forgiven an important part of gratitude?” I was asked this as Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, an Iraqi-born Assyrian bishop in Sydney, released a statement from a hospital forgiving the teenager who stabbed him during Mass last week. We were in Manhattan talking about gratitude as a civic virtue ..read more

“What a strange feeling it is to be looking at what by all appearances is a piece of bread in a little glass compartment in the center of a very simple gold monstrance and feel like you are the one being stared at.” Emily Bleicher shared this experience with the Register about her witness to the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist when she was a Protestant. Through a moment of grace, she recognized Jesus beyond her own understanding ..read more

Many years ago, a friend visiting an Eastern European country diligently wrote several postcards, stamped them, and then dropped them in what he thought was a mailbox. It turned out to be a very elegant trash can. Of course, his postcards never made it to their intended recipients. In the pro-life movement, messaging can often be like my friend’s simple mistake ..read more

“What is truth?” That cynical question, memorably posed by Pontius Pilate, is enjoying new currency today, thanks to public statements by Katherine Maher, the newly installed head of National Public Radio (NPR). ”We all have different truths,” Maher told a TED talk audience, explaining that there are ..read more

In the Psalms, one of the arguments used with some frequency by those who feel abandoned by God runs like this: First, a rhetorical question is asked about whether the dead can praise God, the presumed answer being “No”. Second, the conclusion is drawn that God should aid the one who calls upon Him ..read more

One of the more puzzling elements in the Gospel descriptions of the post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus is the fact that Matthew’s Gospel ends on a mountaintop in Galilee, while Luke’s account concludes near Bethany and the Mount of Olives, just a short distance from Jerusalem and almost a hundred miles south of Galilee ..read more

Archbishop Marek Jędraszewski of Krakow, Poland, announced the decision to begin the process of beatification and canonization of Helena Agnieszka Kmiec, a young lay missionary murdered in Bolivia in 2017 ..read more

Last year, I received a phone call from Father Dwight. “Joseph,’ he said, “I have an idea.” “Well,” I quipped, laughing. “That’s a first!” “We should start a Catholic college in Greenville,” he continued. “It’s needed and we can do it.” My initial reaction was to tell him that he was crazy. This time, however, I stopped myself from saying it. Twice bitten, thrice shy ..read more

“This destroyed household that now stands between the sexes is a wound that is suffered inescapably by both men and women.” My eyes were opened when I read these words of Wendell Berry. My wife’s suffering in a home arrangement that has shown itself more and more to be unnatural is in fact also very much my problem; indeed, a problem for our marriage ..read more