Young adult Catholics are legion. Statistical surveys indicate as much. Yet when I step over the threshold of my parish church, I see very few of my peers.

These recent weeks I have been musing dreamlike over my seven Jesuit decades. Time and again I was struck by a line from that ever so popular hymn Amazing Grace. Eight monosyllables: ’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far. Grace. Not some vague abstraction. Rather, God’s ceaseless pres

Friday, Sept. 14On my second day at the site that the press now calls ground zero, it has become more difficult to gain access, even in a Roman collar. Today at Chelsea Piers, a sports arena turned supply warehouse, I hitch a ride in a huge tractor-trailer with two ironworkers from New Jersey. Becau

She was walking down the hospital corridor in stocking feet, a tall, striking woman with long hair and the head-covering of an observant Jew. We must have said a quick hello. It was a mutual recognition of an experience shared but not articulated: so you too are here because your kid has a brain tum

It was a lovely summer morning, perfect for the first Ladies Day Out for the women in my family. From all over Virginia, we gathered for brunch in a private dining room at a historic hotel in Richmond. Our holiday was the newest twist on our family’s tradition of enjoying the pleasure of one a

I once heard a talk by a priest who was also a clinical psychologist, in which he said: “If you are a Christian, you have to believe that people can change. If you don’t believe people can change, you have no right to call yourself a believer in Jesus Christ and in his Gospel message. It