"We have to close parishes.” “Many of our young priests are very conservative.” “So many couples who come to be married in church or to have their babies baptized don’t have a clue about the faith. People call themselves Catholic but have nothing to do with the Chu

To celebrate my 50th birthday, my sister, brother-in-law and their three kids took me on vacation for two weeks to Alaska. It was a wonderful summer vacation, with spectacular scenery and memorable moments. Midway through the vacation, my sister Mary Beth, her husband, Dominic, and I had the opportu

I'm 77 and retired, a priest, a celibate. You may be like me. Or you may be married still, with or without your spouse. You may be a parent, a grandparent or, God bless you, a great-grandparent. Or you may be single, young, with the expectation of many years ahead. In any event, I hope each of y

Some came because of their faith. Some came to speak out for social justice. Some came for political reasons. They were there, as they are every year on Nov. 19-21. But was their presence enough? More than 13,000 people, many of them college students, converged on the city of Columbus, Ga., to prote

Last Sunday evening I had one of the more remarkable telephone conversations of my life. At first I simply heard a man’s cultured voice, with a smooth and soft foreign accent, very politely say, “Father Gelson?” “Yes.” “Father, do you remember a scouting trip to D

I prayed over a dead man today. His name was Jocelyn, and he had only one leg. His other leg had been amputated “not too long ago due to complications from sugar,” said the man in the adjacent bed. That man’s legs had both been amputated at the knees. I guessed Jocelyn had been in