We Christians get a pretty good deal at Christmas time. We get two Christmas seasons! We get the retail Christmas, the time before Christmas, with all the lights and decorations and songs. This is the season to get people to buy things. It’s sort of a secular season of Advent, but, rather than focusing on...Read More

Catholicism is in crisis all over Old Europe. Nowhere is that crisis more pronounced than in Ireland, where clerical corruption and disastrous episcopal leadership have collided with rank political expediency and a rabidly anticlerical media to produce a perfect storm of ecclesiastical meltdown. The country whose constitution begins “In the name of the Most Holy...Read More

You’re one in 7 billion. According to UN estimates, as of Oct. 31, there are now 7 billion people on the planet (well, a few more each day since then). That’s a lot of people. Depending on whom you ask, that’s a good thing, or a reason to panic.Read More

By the time this column appears most of the leaves will be gone. But right now I'm watching the few remaining leaves fall to the ground. Here and there, there are still trees with bright red leaves on them – burning bushes, so to speak, of the presence of God.Read More