Category: Advancing the Kingdom

 “Sing for your supper …  songbirds always eat”. This lyric from the Rodgers and Hart Broadway musical, “The Boys from Syracuse” borrows from the ‘Little Tommy Tucker’ nursery rhyme first published in 1744. Its association with singing and children brings to mind a fund recently…

“Liberty, for what? Fools, for what? Let me have a little more time, you work diligently, and I will soon take complete care of you; I will insure you against all risks (except against the loss of liberty, of course); I will marry you off,…

 Why Catholic philanthropy?  The broad variety of organizations to which NCCF’s trustees have approved distributions over the past twenty-three years suggests to some that our concept of Catholic philanthropy exceeds the bounds of ‘being Catholic’.  Our reply, of course, is that the distributions we make…

For my siblings and me Independence Day is a dual celebration, the birth of our nation and the birth of our mother, Josephine.  So, we are doubly grateful for this holiday, for the blessings we have enjoyed as a nation and as a family. The…

If they make an effort to review it readers will find the attached report both constructive and provocative. Translated from its Italian by James Crowley, the Dean of NCCF’s trustees, it chronicles the February 3rd interview between Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia and Davide Maniscalco, respectively the…

Antelucan. Today an esteemed colleague shared this new word with me. I reciprocated with one I had recently discovered: Aphotic. His is preferable. It is Pentecost Sunday. We are reminded that the Church – founded two millennia ago by our Lord and inspired by his…

(The following remarks were offered earlier this month as an introduction to NCCF’s first webinar) NCCF was incorporated in Delaware over twenty years ago and was co-founded by the Raskob Foundation and twenty other groups consisting of religious Orders and organizations. It was inspired by…

Pericope adulterae  is the term used to refer to the passage in St. John’s Gospel where the Pharisees present Jesus with the woman ‘caught in adultery’ and ask him if, according to Mosaic law, she should be stoned (Jn. 7:53 – 8:11). After writing something…

Generally regarded as a logophile my mother had a particular fascination for contranyms. She delighted in the fact that words such a sanction, dust, dress, and overlook could mean their opposites. Even so she instructed my siblings and me (or in today’s untutored grammar ‘my…

Members of a certain generation will recall fondly childhood tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Roundtable. These Arthurian romances recount the awakening within the royal realm of the revolutionary understanding that ‘might’ does not make ‘right’. Rather the reverse had to be…