When someone dies, it is only right that family and friends be given a chance to share their memories of their loved one. But the balance between pastoral care and logistical realities can be a tough one to strike.
Death and Dying
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Covid, 9/11, Florida: I tried to find something to blame for a Jesuit’s death. Nothing stuck.
When our superior told us that Jerry Huyett had died in Florida, I realized, in a way I never quite had before, a very basic thing; maybe the most basic thing of all: Life ends.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Remembering Father Quealy: the first Catholic chaplain killed in Vietnam
Father Michael Quealy, the first military chaplain killed in action in Vietnam, was honored on the day of his death in the Reading of the Names ceremony.
Posted inFaith, The Good Word
Why Edith Stein is the perfect saint for All Souls’ Day (and a world plagued by antisemitism)
On this Feast of All Souls, let us remember “our people,” living for God and for each other. We can live for both, and die for both.
Posted inFaith
Pope Francis on All Souls’ Day: At our final judgment, all that counts is how we loved the poor.
The Gospel teaches people how to live while awaiting death and God’s judgment, loving because he is love, Pope Francis said during a Mass at St. Peter’s on All Souls’ Day.
Posted inNews, Politics & Society
South Korean bishops offer prayers after Halloween stampede kills over 150 people
Catholic bishops in South Korea expressed sorrow and offered prayers after more than 150 people died in a stampede during Halloween celebrations in Seoul.
Posted inFaith, Features
The church forbids ‘human composting’ at death. But what about ‘green’ burials?
The movement for natural burial is growing and is slowly becoming more mainstream in the United States, but the practice is as old and widespread as our species.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Two scholars on Covid, mortality and the meaning of friendship
While a new book of letters between Jack Miles and Mark C. Taylor uses the early months of the pandemic as the background and occasion for their letters, the friendship they display is vastly more interesting.
Posted inNews, Politics & Society
California legalizes human composting bill against Catholic bishops’ opposition
California is now among the U.S. states that have legalized the process of converting bodies into soil, a procedure the Catholic Church said fails to show ‘respect for the body of the deceased.’
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
When my mom could remember almost nothing else, the Psalms gave her peace in her last days
The moment I said “The Lord is my shepherd,” my mother calmed down and laid there in quiet contemplation.