Marjorie Campbell’s new book, On the Way to the Kingdom, has its origins in the radical feminism of her youth and her discovery of the late humorist and newspaper columnist Erma Bombeck. A mother of three children (ages 13 to 20), a wife, and an attorney, Campbell turned away from radical feminism when a friend … Read more
I was at the supermarket one Sunday after Mass when I saw them: African; first- and second-generation family, of the sort one sees even in New Hampshire sometimes. And I think they noticed me, too — for we were the only ones in the whole place wearing suits. My excuse for the suit was lector … Read more
“Mama! Mama! Ma-maaaaa!” whined four-year-old Raphael as I changed his little brother’s diaper and quizzed his older sister on her spelling words. “What?” I answered him hastily. “I’m listening.” “No,” he pouted. “I want you to listen with your eyes.” Oh. That. Ever have a moment when you feel like someone … Read more
The Nobel Prize-winning writer Octavio Paz once quipped that the Mexican people, after five centuries of experimentation, have come to believe only in two things: the Virgin of Guadalupe and the National Lottery. Having been raised by Mexican immigrants in this country, I cannot testify to my ancestral nation’s enthusiasm for games of chance with … Read more
The topic of physician-assisted suicide, or PAS, is a confusing and heart-wrenching issue for many. In some ways, it can touch us more personally than abortion, as we are all likely to face difficult end-of-life choices at some point, whether for ourselves or for a loved one. We have to navigate Church teaching on bioethics; … Read more
 With its annual collection coming up this Sunday, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development is fighting back against the organized effort encouraging Catholics to ignore the collection. CCHD’s woes began last year, when its grants to ACORN were terminated following the allegations of voter fraud and embezzlement brought against them during the … Read more
The Future Church: How Ten Trends Are Revolutionizing the Catholic Church John L. Allen Jr., Doubleday, 480 pages, $28 According to the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, at the conclusion of His time on earth Jesus entrusted to the apostles and those who would come after them a mandate that was, and still … Read more
Leaving aside the popes, the person who has served as the public face of the Church in the United States for the past two decades is a little, crippled, chronically ill, old Italian-American lady who chats with Jesus daily, used to speak in tongues, and leaps before she looks. As I write this, she is … Read more
You may want to sit down for this, but flamboyantly apostate Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong actually thrilled me with a prescient bit of insight into Scripture! How is this possible? Well, there is a basic principle at work in the universe called the Gomer Pyle Axiom of High and Low Expectations. It works … Read more
Marking the end of the third year of war, Italy seemed fated to lose, whichever side won. Germany began to view Mussolini as, in the words of Churchill, “a lackey and a serf, the merest utensil of his master’s will.” Italian aspirations for “spazio vitale” were not mentioned when Joseph Goebbels was in Venice to … Read more