I am rich in all the ways that matter even though I also have an arts tax to pay, you know.
Our greatest spiritual teachers can be our nearest and dearest. The familiar ones with whom we share sinks and sheets and silverware.
It was a bad afternoon at the ad agency. I was just finishing up a creative brief for a denture adhesive ad campaign when my boss came by to tell me about a new client, smokeless tobacco from Sweden.
To say the spectators were surprised at the ability of the youthful thespians would be putting it mildly.
Students from local Catholic high schools are joining their peers around America to voice fear and anger over mass shootings. We should listen. They are right. At its core, this is a dignity of life issue.
On Feb. 10, 50 people attended Dreams, Justice and Solidarity, an event at the Portland Commmunity College Rock Creek Campus. The powerful, engaging, community event was a collaborative effort of Jhoana Monroy-Espinosa and Petrona Dominguez from PCC Rock Creek and St. Juan Diego parishioners Mary Davidson and myself.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Lent began on St. Valentine’s Day. I don’t believe this was merely a cosmic calendar coincidence. Rather, I think it’s possible that the Sovereign Scheduler On High is encouraging us to journey with him on the Way of Love during this penitential season.
One Sunday after Mass when I was 13 years old, I told my dad that I wasn't sure if I believed that Jesus was really in the Eucharist.
The biggest news at the Golden Globes this year was not which television series won the most honors. It was Oprah Winfrey's speech, saying of the "brutally powerful men" in Hollywood who have sexually harassed and abused women: "Their time is up!"
A major study published on Dec. 7 in the New England Journal of Medicine concludes that hormonal contraception increases the risk of breast cancer for women.
This Catholic Republican is grateful to see my church and my party taking initiative on this life-or-death issue. It is time to pass a strong, bipartisan repeal of the death penalty like Senate Bill 5354.
How we come to know God? Faith and prayer for sure, but the physical world also provides material signs of his presence.
Millions of Catholics in the United States were educated in Catholic schools during the past two centuries. It is no secret that such education has yielded amazing fruits for this particular faith community and for the larger society.
Pope Francis has called a synod on "Young people, faith and vocational discernment" to discuss how the church can help young people live their faith "through a series of choices that find expression in the states of life." In short, the synod wants to help young people live out their vocation to holiness as lifelong adult Catholics by learning how to discern God's will in daily life.
Even after working on an issue for decades, you can come across one thing that shifts your perception of what it's about. That happened to me recently on the issue of physician-assisted suicide, thanks to an intrepid Swedish investigator named Fabian Stahle.
The homeless person sitting on the corner near our church never moved off his bench despite freezing temperatures. No matter the time of day, there he sat bundled up in clothes people had donated.
In late December, as I returned home after an enthusiastic excursion to gather my last Christmas presents, the clicker to my parking garage door died. It looked like it was working; the little red light blinked just as it should when I pressed the "open" button.
Now "gene editing" may soon allow parents to tailor the genetic makeup of their offspring, producing the "perfect" child (whatever that means when we adults have imperfect ideas about children).
Portland’s quota in the Knights of Columbus war fund drive which begins next Monday has been fixed at $50,000 and the men in charge of the local campaign are making energetic preparations to secure that amount in the time allotted.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would become some sort of de facto member of the Altar Society—but there I was on a Friday evening, YouTubeing videos of how to wash, fold, crimp, crease and prepare altar linens for Mass.
What to my wondering eyes should appear But Santa, his sleigh and his eight faithful reindeer. I was dressed as a hiker, and with snow shovel in hand, Santa thought I was the maintenance man.
Congress did pass legislation late last year, funding CHIP for three more months, hardly reassuring. The half-hearted, short-term funding still tortures families worrying that their children’s health care might end.
Let us take these short weeks before the celebration of his birth to give thought to his coming, to ponder how the Lord has transformed our lives, to consider what more change he will bring and to think about how we are serving him as we might serve anyone we love.
Dante Alighieri wrote, “He listens well who takes notes.” It turns out he wasn’t referring to laptops.
That hordes of influential men have been harassing, assaulting, violating and raping women is more than a social or moral problem. There are theological implications. Men who use women as objects of pleasure are striking at the very heart of God’s plan, which was to save us from such debauchery through a selfless woman.
We must wonder how many will truly celebrate Christmas this year, making it the best ever? What is meant by a "true celebration"?
Richard Wilbur died in October. He was, Dana Gioia said, the finest poet of his generation and the greatest American Christian poet since Eliot.
As we prepare for Christmas, I am sure many readers have had the experience of thoughtfully selecting a gift for a child and laboriously tracking down the item. The present, upon being opened, brings moments of squealing, then disappears into a pile of shredded colorful wrap, forgotten within the hour.
The site of the University could not be more charming, situated, as it is, on a high eminence overlooking the picturesque Willamette River, within the city limits, and in full view of Portland, whence it is easily reached by electric cars.
This Advent, imagine that you and your family lose everything. Home, neighbors, livelihood. This Advent, imagine that you have only one choice: Leave everything you know, you possess, you count on. Or die.
I have just opened a fresh box containing an over-the-counter pain reliever and now need a double dose because of the discomfort caused by the act of prying the lid off the bottle.
Pope Francis has said in the preparatory document for the upcoming synod on "young people, faith and vocational discernment" that we need to see credible witnesses in order to be inspired to be holy.
This season sparkles with joy. We open our homes to family and friends, greeting each other at wreath-decked doors under twinkling lights.
A recent article in The Wall Street Journal noted the upswing in the work of reference librarians who are receiving more calls from curious seekers who either can't find what they are searching for on Google or just prefer to search for information with the help of another human being.
The world is full of murder, sexual assault, slavery, war and other evil. Sometimes nationalism is to blame. Often there’s religious persecution or racism. And then there’s simply anger.