Michael J. O’Loughlin

Recognizing that it s sometimes easier to focus on what can be improved in the church than to highlight what is working I want to follow my post on the Lost conference with something I experienced at the end of weekend the day after the conference ended A friend I met at Fordham is a lay ecc

What role does the church play if any to twenty-something Catholics in the United States This was the question that a group of Catholic thinkers writers pastors lay ministers and other church leaders attempted to answer this weekend at a conference held at Fordham University called Lost Twe

By far the biggest applause during Tuesday s State of the Union speech was in response to a message from the president offering support to American troops serving around the world especially in Iraq and Afghanistan Every person present in the chamber rose to his or her feet and stood clapping

Over in Books and Culture America s Jake Martin has an excellent review of three worthy tv series 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation both on NBC and The Big Bang Theory on CBS He writes The landscape of television these days is a grim one with little to appeal to a thoughtful reflective audi

Did you have a chance to listen to Fr Jim Martin s appearance on NPR s The Dianne Rehm Show where he joined Episcopal priest Fr Alberto Cutie to discuss celibacy and the priestly life Cutie is promoting his new book Dilemma parts of which read as a polemic against celibacy and speak of the na

A Catholic diocese in the United States is offering a twelve-step program for men struggling with same-sex attraction From The Colorado Springs Gazette The Catholic Diocese of Colorado Springs is borrowing a page from Alcoholics Anonymous by launching a 12-step program that offers pastoral

The Archdiocese of Boston released a new non-discrimination policy for Catholic schools last week The Boston Globe reports The Archdiocese of Boston under fire from all sides after a parochial school withdrew an admissions offer to the child of a lesbian couple yesterday released a new Catholi

The battle over liturgical text translation that heated up last year is but the latest in a long series of acrimonious debate about words and their meanings and implications for different groups of people Something similar happened in the UK nearly 400 years ago From The Guardian Except of cours

Deval Patrick and Lincoln Chafee were sworn in as governors of Massachusetts and Rhode Island respectively last week and how they chose to commemorate a certain aspect of their inaugurations is especially interesting In Massachusetts Gov Patrick attended a morning prayer service at Bosto

Just when we thought reality television couldn t become any more terrifying than Sarah Palin s Alaska Discovery announced it is partnering with the Catholic Church to create a series about exorcism and demonic possession From Entertainment Weekly The Exorcist Files will recreate stories of re