Valerie Schultz

Thinking I had to steel myself for the changes looming for the first Sunday of Advent was God rsquo s joke on me because the priest who presided over the Saturday evening Mass I just attended for the feast of Christ the King decided to go with the new translation one week early Glossy brochures in

nbsp I am privileged to be a staff sponsor at a state prison for the self-help 12-step groups of AA and NA A staff sponsor is different from a program sponsor I am not a recovering alcoholic or addict who has a one-on-one relationship with another alcoholic or addict in order to facilitate work

nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp In March I made my yearly pilgrimage to Anaheim not to Disneyland but to the Catholic Religious Education Congress sponsored by the Los Angeles Archdiocese where I am always provoked and energized by the workshops offered I am sti

With apologies to the writers of ldquo Late Night with David Letterman rdquo Right now is not an easy time to be Catholic But is it ever easy I sometimes speculate that it might be simpler to be Protestant Protestants are allowed to go church shopping and they don rsquo t even have to go to a

My husband and I recently attended the Bat Mitzvah of a dear friend rsquo s daughter Our daughters are all adults but our friend from college days married a younger woman and so his oldest child is just becoming a teenager His lovely wife is Jewish which explains why a friend from a Catholic un

The question that needs answering is this Can a person be a practicing Catholic and a member of PFLAG More exactly can a person be a practicing Catholic and the head of the PFLAG publicity committee Or do the two organizations contradict each other rsquo s missions to the point that my head migh

nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp A radio remembrance of R Sargent Shriver who passed away at the venerable age of 95 recently caught my attention Shriver was the brother-in-law of President Kennedy having married JFK rsquo s sister Eunice Personifying the ldq

The world is very different now For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life -John F Kennedy Inaugural Speech January 20 1961 With these words John F Kennedy encapsulated the dichotomy of the modern age we have mastered the

nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp In a recent fit of downsizing I was sorting through a box of forgotten possessions in the garage I rsquo m not even sure which daughter had left behind this jumble of school supplies and adolescent accessories Determined to get rid of one more carton of unn