Timothy W. O'Brien, S.J.

A few weeks ago a family friend asked me a question about prayer What s the point he wondered of praying for what you want when we re taught in the Our Father to say Thy will be done Since then I ve struggled to articulate a coherent response — having promised him a more considered opin

Michelle Bachmann s former church the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod WELS has officially weighed in on the recent controversy surrounding their teaching that the pope is the Antichrist The church s president Rev Mark Schroeder writes WELS holds to the historic Lutheran position that th

Texas Governor Rick Perry has been in the news with some frequency of late A good deal of the coverage has centered on his support of a national day of prayer The Response USA which will invoke God s help in restoring moral purpose to the United States nbsp Incidentally this is an event w

Over the past few decades dioceses throughout the United States have been faced with tough decisions surrounding church closures The factors behind such closures are often quite complex In some instances changing demographics have seen Catholics move from the inner-city to the suburbs Even wher

USA Today s Mark Pinsky has a column today dedicated to Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino the current Archbishop of Havana nbsp Though there s no shortage of cardinalatial news today Pinsky s piece caught my eye because it suggests that the 74-year-old prelate might himself have a new post

I grew up in suburban Philadelphia and as a kid in Catholic school Eucharistic adoration was a regular feature of our observance of the liturgical year especially during Lent As a practice adoration has deep historical roots in the church in Philadelphia roots that extend at least as far back a

The artwork gracing the walls in Jesuit communities is often restricted to framed posters of famous paintings Caravaggio s Supper at Emmaus presides over the dining room perhaps a copy of Henry Ossawa Tanner s The Annunciation in the chapel It seems that may not be the case at Campion Hall t

This weekend the Guardian s David Hare published an interview with Rowan Williams the Archbishop of Canterbury nbsp In their wide-ranging conversation Williams touches on the pitfalls of free-market capitalism the insufficiency of logical arguments as conclusive proof for God s existence an

This week the L A Times ran a story about the makeshift shrines to Our Lady of Guadalupe that populate Los Angeles The article is a moving testament to popular devotion and to the attempt to make everyday places into sites of contact with God These mini-grottoes have often served as focal points

In the current edition of Washington Monthly Kevin Carey tells the fascinating story of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur that founded Trinity College now University in Washington D C Opened in 1900 Trinity was intended to serve women who could not attend all-male Catholic colleges and univer