In All Things

Loyola Productions has just completed a new DVD called Who Cares about the Saints which is designed to introduce the stories of some of the most popular of the church s saints to a new generation With some of my own commentary coupled with terrific footage photos images and graphics the D

Last week after a long battle with cancer Professor Michael Signer of the University of Notre Dame passed on With him died a very special sensibility In Jewish-Catholic relations Michael was a catalyst drawing the best from both sides For nearly 20 years I have participated in the national Cat

Both Archbishop Jean Jadot and Cardinal Pio Laghi died this month Jadot served as an apostolic delegate to the United States under Paul VI and Laghi was nuncio under John Paul II In 1990 Father Tom Reese offered this helpful comparison of the two men and the legacy of the bishops that were appoi

With a flurry of executive orders and his personal attendance at the swearing in of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Barack Obama has alerted the nation and the world that his foreign policy will be vastly different from George W Bush rsquo s On Tuesday as Obama took the oath of office you co

Just a note to let people in the New York area know of a very good conference day we have coming up at Fordham titled Ministry to American Catholics and sponsored by the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education It will take place on Friday 6 February In the morning our discussion

In God We Trust may be the national motto but it hardly clarifies anything The more interesting question is In Which God Do We Trust and the inaugural festivities rendered a mixed verdict When Bishop Gene Robinson told the New York Times that he was horrified that earlier inaugural prayers

Yesterday watching the Inauguration I was surprised by patriotic joy This intense response confirmed a recent psychological report I had been reading demonstrating how poorly people predict their own future emotions Science 9 January 2009 In experiments showing once again that humans are poo

Ingmar Bergman s brooding film Winter Light may have given winter a bad name Certainly the long darkness of the arctic north can weigh on the soul and even residents of temperate climes can suffer from cabin fever when winter passes through the tunnel months of February and March when the sea

As soon as Obama finishes speaking people begin leaving Seriously it looks like the ninth inning at Yankee Stadium I can t even see or hear poet Elizabeth Alexander at times through the dispersing crowds But the text is a gem A last prayer from the Rev Dr Joseph E Lowery He looks

Obama speaks It begins far lighter on rhetoric than I expected Starts with the now common refrain things are going to be tough Ugh I know but I could recite the section in my sleep I wonder early on if this is going to sound more like a State of the Union or something Clintonian I hope not