A popular priest-psychologist from Oregon, Father Ray Carey, has warned bishops for decades with his sage advice: “The absence of psychosis is not a valid reason to ordain someone a priest.” Recently, I’ve met with individuals and groups that have read Bishop Barron’s Letter to a Suffering Church.  With numerous questions and concerns, they are […]

“May the Good Lord be with you down every road you roam; may sunlight and happiness surround you far from home…may good fortune be with you and your guiding light be strong; build a stairway to heaven as prince or vagabond…be courageous and be brave and in my heart you’ll always stay forever young.”  Rod […]

“Your office looks like the office in The Office.”  That’s what one of our sixth or seventh graders at Saint Charles Parish recently proclaimed when he toured the parish office here for the first time with some classmates.  As I looked around, I saw that he was right; there are many similarities from the reception […]

When Mick Jagger was a much younger man, he let it be known that “you can’t always get what you want but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need.”  Many of us live that reality regularly.  Spiritualists might twist his lyrics a bit to profess that God knows what […]

Many of us fear that our society is becoming increasingly godless and religion-less.  In our Catholic faith, for example, it is estimated that for every one person that joins the church another six leave it, and nearly 50% of young adults brought up in Catholic households self-identify as “nones,” i.e., they claim no religious affiliation.  […]

Joyce Kilmer’s famous poem, Trees, touches the heart of a child’s wonder amidst nature, a wonder that should not depart from us as we age. “I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree.  A tree whose hungry mouth is prest against the earth’s sweet flowing breast; a tree that […]

On several occasions, Pope Francis has commented that at the root of our church’s many problems is clericalism.  Clericalism is a disordered attitude of superiority toward the ordained which becomes manifest in arrogance, expectations of privilege, and abuse of power.  Catholics around the globe increasingly understand what the Holy Father means. Earlier this year, Richard […]

The British rock group, Bastille, sings a ballad about the sudden termination of Pompeii.  As he sees the city crumble, the lyricist unloads: “The walls keep tumbling down on the place we love…as the dust settles around us, we’re lost in the vices, the rubble or our sins.”  As the destruction continues, the singer keeps […]

If priests were permitted to marry, would it solve the Catholic clergy sexual crisis?  If women were ordained, would we reduce sexual problems among clergy?  If homosexual priests were ousted from ministry, would that improve matters?  Should we place the blame primarily on celibacy, the all-male clergy, or the fact that some priests are gay? […]

The Third Commandment tells us to Keep holy the Sabbath.  It doesn’t tell us to Go to church on Sunday but among the most common sins brought to the confessional on a typical Saturday afternoon is “I missed Sunday Mass.”  Not a Commandment of God but a precept of the Catholic Church, skipping Mass is […]