Sondheim’s stories and lyrics always seemed to be addressing you personally. You couldn’t simply watch his musicals. Eventually you had to contend with them.
Jim McDermott
Jim McDermott writes about pop culture at jimmcdermott.substack.
Posted inArts & Culture, Film
‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ is the perfect Thanksgiving movie for this year
Most of us will enter into the weekend feeling like Steve Martin’s Neal Page, entirely justified in our desires. We should be able to have a Thanksgiving that is not filled with craziness or fighting!
Posted inArts & Culture, Ideas
The Catholic Church is slow to change. When it comes to the names of our churches, that’s a good thing.
Staples Center in Los Angeles is now the Crypto.com Center. St. Patrick’s Cathedral will no doubt continue to change in the coming decades, but one thing it will never do is rename itself #JesusWins Cathedral.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
A Jesuit guide to dealing with unvaccinated family members this holiday season
If some of your family members aren’t vaccinated, you might have some hard choices to make this holiday season. St. Ignatius can help.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
The best holiday tradition you’ve never heard of: Venezuelans roller skating to Christmas Mass at sunrise
One of the best parts of Christmas is hearing about how other people celebrate it. And in Venezuela, they have all-night roller skating, which ends with everyone skating to Mass at dawn.
Posted inFaith, Short Take
Dear Bishops: We need to talk about the crisis of despair in Catholic priests
That morale is down for priests across the country is not exactly stop-the-presses material. But I wonder if it isn’t the canary in the coal mine of the Catholic Church today.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
Can we please stop idolizing the decadent lifestyles that are destroying our planet?
Ivy Getty’s extravagant wedding was designed to make us jealous. We need to find more climate-friendly experiences of FOMO.
Posted inInterviews, Politics & Society
Senator Dick Durbin on being denied Communion over abortion stance: ‘I am careful when I go to a church’
For the last 17 years, Senator Durbin has been unable to receive Communion in his home diocese in Springfield, Ill.
Posted inArts & Culture, Ideas
Sorry, Mark Zuckerberg: We Catholics want the real world, not the metaverse.
Mark Zuckerberg wants us all to live in his Metaverse. But as Catholics, our fundamental disposition toward the physical world is that it is precious and meaningful.
Posted inExplainer, Faith
I’m a priest who never had a devotion to the rosary. So I decided to dig into its meaning.
Where did the practice of praying the rosary come from, and why is it such an important part of so many Catholics’ spiritual lives?