Construction spending is one indicator of what a society values.  According to the Census Bureau, construction of houses of worship plunged in the United States over the past twenty years while building boomed in most categories.  The 66% decline in religious structures, from $9 billion in 2003 to $3 billion in 2021, is a record […]

In the 1950s and 60s, high school and college seminaries were packed with boys and young men, 14-22, wearing cassocks, smoking cigarettes, and trying to grow up within structures permitted by priests charged with forming them to become clerics.  As one of them recalls: “They treated us like boys, dressed us like girls, and expected […]

In a papal document entitled Munificentissimus Deus (“The most bountiful God”) released in late 1950, Pope Pius XII declared, ex cathedra (infallibly), the doctrine of the Assumption of Blessed Mother Mary: “We proclaim and define it to be a dogma revealed by God that the Immaculate Mother of God, Mary ever-virgin, when the course of […]

A story is told about a western religious leader who visited the Far East to explore eastern spirituality more deeply.  He participated in numerous cultural events and celebrations of faith.  Hosted by many religious guides, he spoke with them about their beautiful liturgies and, at the end of his visit, when asked by a high […]

Most of us are proud and grateful to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands… Though we only know a fragment of the sacrifices made by our forebears and are, on the flipside, unaware of the extent of cruelty that others doled out […]

We love the Olympics!  Even in odd years, even in odd circumstances, we take up the cry: faster, higher, stronger.  Our innate desire is to always do better. According to records, the ancient Olympics began around 776 BCE and continued at four-year intervals for more than a thousand year (until 393, current era); the modern […]

Victor Hugo once said: “A church is God between four walls.”  Churches attempt to capture God’s essence and carry out His work here on earth.  Churches are good things, and I am blessed to serve one in which people’s lives are enhanced and their journey of faith is strengthened.  I personally believe that the world […]

As we live through ordinary encounters, we are periodically struck by extraordinary events that forever change us.  When Stevie Nicks, singer with the famous rock band Fleetwood Mac, wrote the lyrics to Landslides in the mid-1970s she was thinking of her father who, at that time, was facing life-threatening surgery, while she also contemplated a […]

When I began this blog, “Charged With Saint Charles” four years ago, it was for several reasons.  One reason was that my nearly thirty years of service in Jackson County had ended and I came to the northland as if it were a foreign land—people suggested that this would be a good means to stay […]

We admire, honor, and love our American forbears because they are heroes.  They were also contributors and builders far more than they were critics or complainers; and we admire that, too.  When they faced oppression from the British monarchy or hardships from cultivating the land or struggles in forming a democracy, they creatively found ways […]