The fresh-faced American priest stood there like Ichabod Crane: startled and fence-post skinny inside a wind-whipped cassock, his sharp, dominant nose seemingly pointing out to the ruination before him. Squatters with blank stares picked through hills of garbage, beggars huddled in cardboard boxes, and lunatics muttered into the long-traveling winds coming from the plains of … Read more
After decades of playing its own executioner, perhaps it has come to this for the generally infertile American Catholic education system: it will be only the finger of God working through heroes that will come to the rescue of its lost children. As we enter “Celebrate Catholic Schools Week,” it would be good to find … Read more
This past weekend, my 11-year-old daughter and I went to see A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood at the local theater. The movie, based on Mr. Rogers’s interaction and friendship with a hardscrabble magazine reporter, is a moving portrayal of the manner in which one’s tender love and care is able to transform a suffering … Read more
I saw his collar. It was a sun-splashed late morning and parking spaces were hard to come by for the lunch hour crowd at the Westfield Annapolis Mall in Maryland. For some reason, I squinted into my rearview mirror and saw that the driver trailing was a Catholic priest. Five minutes later, he was five … Read more
It’s coming up on 20 years since my uncle, Msgr. Thomas Wells, was murdered in his Maryland rectory during a somber late summer night. Deputy state attorney Kay Winfree called the scene spine-chilling: as gruesome as anything she’d ever encountered. His body was marked by deep stab wounds around his head and neck, accompanied by … Read more