John A. Coleman

nbsp nbsp nbsp The gospel for the 26th Sunday in Cycle B is about the strange or alien exorcist whom the disciples try to hinder because he was not they said part of us Scripture scholar John Donahue S J in his commentary on Mark notes The episode of the strange exorcist is remark

nbsp Our Jesuit parish in San Francisco is renewing and re-writing its mission statement Our present mission statement is way too long over two pages and mingles without clarity actual and operative goals and what are still just aspirations Even though the mission statement is found on our w

On the feast of Saint Bernard August 20 I am unlikely to celebrate his preaching of the Second Crusade Although he was ardent in fighting schisms and heresies in the church they were schisms and heresies so long now out of date that they do not much interest us today But he is also remembered

On August 9 every year the church celebrates the martyrdom of the Carmelite Sister Teresia Benedicta of the Cross Edith Stein who was gassed at Auschwitz that day seventy years ago I put the term martyrdom in quotations since Edith Stein was murdered by the Nazis for being Jewish and on

I just finished reading and studying an important book which is quite germane in the middle of an election-year campaign What Money Can t Buy The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael Sandel Farrar Strauss and Giroux 2012 Sandel a gifted teacher and political philosopher who teaches at Harvard

I am doing something of a spin-off on Michael O Loughlin s blog about tough questions in Oakland My concern is less the debate between Bishop Cordilione and the Board of the Catholic Association for Gay and Lesbian ministry but rather the disturbing and growing recourse to ecclesiastical loyalty o