I come before you as a pastor who cares deeply about your work as Catholic legislators. We do not always agree. I have tried to be a clear teacher and a decent pastor here in our nation’s capital. I offer some brief reflections that may nourish and challenge you in your vital responsibilities.
“When life comes forth or life is taken at some point, it’s more than earth, it’s more than buildings, it’s more than weather. It involves transformation. I see it as something to be memorialized."
The more thoroughly you lay waste a nationlevel its cities, slaughter its people, its noncombatant peoplethe more conclusive your victory will be.... If you want to turn a psychotic aggressor nation into a well-mannered commercial oneif you want to beat swords into plowshares, and infantry
From every tragedy there is something to be learned. The Catholic Church’s struggle with sexual abuse of children by members of its clergy is no different. But the lesson is one for the entire country, not just the church. Although there were inklings of the church’s clerical abuse probl
In 2001 the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued an instruction on the translation of the liturgy entitled Liturgiam Authenticam. Five years later, at their semi-annual meeting in Los Angeles in mid-June, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
When reports began to surface within the Boy Scouts of America that a male nurse was touching scouts inappropriately during overnight camping trips, the executive leadership, not pleased, replaced the nurse. Later, however, his replacement was removed after similar allegations. Confused and deeply d
During the last three years of her life, my grandmother spent much of her time in one small room of the house she had lived in since moving to the suburbs to be closer to her children and grandchildren. The room was about 6 feet by 6 feet, close quarters crammed with a couch, a television set and tw