Of Many Things

The saints in glory, whether they have been formally canonized or not, are immune to irritation. Were that not the case, those canonized saints who were married men might have been chagrined to find their existence denied in a letter to the editor in the May 6 issue of The New Yorker.Thomas A. DiMag

With luck, you may live close enough to your job to be able to walk home from work. This is my own fortunate situation. On weekdays, I usually leave America House between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m and head southeast down through Manhattan to the Lower East Side. Having been seated at a desk since 8 a.m., the

Revelations over these past few months are enough to dizzy one’s mind. Even more dizzying, though, are the perhaps millions of words that have been penned in the media worldwide. Have we heard enough? Have we heard more than enough? What’s to be done? Shocking…scandalous…disgraceful.

Not being a television fan, on free evenings I tune in to some classical music on National Public Radio. The music serves as background for reading. Early in the morning, I turn on the radio again for the news in Spanish as part of my efforts to learn that language.As a child, however, listening to

Autobiographies of people who have struggled with life’s adversities have long been among my favorite kinds of reading. This is especially true of those with a religious dimension that underscores the author’s reliance on God. One such account I recently re-read was the autobiography of

A Goodwill thrift store was at one end of the Maryland town where I grew up, and my first bike came from therea sturdy model that my mother repainted in dark blue. Even as an adult, I used to stop by on trips home, drawn by the store’s amazingly varied contents. I still use a thrift shop alarm

Every practicing Catholic, if asked, can summon a number of memorable moments (memorable being the operative word) in their liturgical life experience. Lucky for me, these span two time zones: pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II. I am convinced it was the magic and mystery in the priest’s Intro

I first heard of Epica at my former parish in Washington, D.C. Several staff members attended its main Sunday Mass, and one was married there. The acronym stands for Ecumenical Program on Central America and the Caribbean. Its mission statement describes the 30-year-old group as an ecumenical faith-

Suddenly everyone is an expert on celibacy. Suddenly everyone is an expert on the priesthood. Suddenly everyone is an expert on gay priests. Or more accurately, suddenly everyone is happy to talk about the Catholic Church, no matter how little they know about Catholicism.Maureen Dowd, in a hateful c

Out of town and alone, you want to call home but the only phone available requires collect calls and your family can’t afford the chargesa temporary problem for many, but one that could last for years if you are behind bars. Telephones represent a lifeline between prisoners and their families,