Category: Advancing the Kingdom

“The values and virtues of the family – its essential truths – are the family unit’s strengths and are not open to challenge. Rather, it is our own way of life that we must re-examine. It runs a continual risk of being ‘infected’ by worldly…

Two passages struck me this past weekend, from quite disparate sources. The Old Testament reading for the first Sunday in Advent is from chapter 63 of Isaiah: “Why, Yahweh, do you let us wander from our way and let our hearts grow too hard to…

Two millennia ago our Lord appeared among us as the son of a carpenter. Suppose the Incarnation occurred today instead. With what profession or trade would the Son of God associate himself? Would he be a professor? ‘Christ the Teacher’ has a familiar ring to…

A half century ago (can you believe it?) in 1963 Father Eymard Gallagher, the Edmundite Missions Director in Selma, Alabama, included these words in his letter to Bishop Toolen of Mobile in which he requested permission “actively to help the Negro people in their struggle…”…

Once again, the world’s eyes are on Africa. This time the Ebola endemic raises our alarm. Each time I read about its expansion and morbid conquests, the bishops of Africa come to mind. So many of the ills that beset that resource-rich continent are avoidable.…

One of the many beliefs Christianity sustains from our Jewish roots is that precious disclosure in Genesis, at the opening of the Torah, that man is created in the image of God. How mind-bogglingly powerful this is! The Creator with infinite irrepressible love allows us…

  Like it or not, one of the peskier facts of life is semantic drift. Consider the evolution in meaning of such words as ‘liberal,’ ‘unique,’ ‘gay’ or ‘egregious.’ Well, ladies and gentlemen, hold onto you hats. Bishops, secure your miters. The new springtime heralded…

By John Rivera Responding to the needs of the philanthropist of more modest means, a group of lay people established the National Catholic Community Foundation, which lets donors set up funds and recommend how the money is disbursed. It is the first community foundation geared…

One hundred and thirty years ago, the bishops took action. We were an immigrant Church. Our “foreign” faith and our susceptible youngsters required shelter from an ambient culture which, though religious, was inimical to Catholicism.

While considering some newsworthy item on which to report as I send on Easter greetings from the trustees of NCCF to all of you I was struck by an analogy offered by the work of that wonderful order of nuns, the Sisters of Notre Dame…