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The poet W.B. Yeats spoke of a fellow Irishman: “Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.”

I was concerned by “Archbishop O’Brien raises concerns about Legion of Christ” (CR, Feb. 26). The Legion and Regnum Christi have had and continue to have a meaningful impact in the faith of my family and many others in Baltimore.

I have to respectfully, but strongly, disagree with Father Peter J. Daly’s “The Common Good” (CR, March 12). His perspective is that Catholic teaching mandates that for the common good, the community must support even people who do stupid, greedy things. Father Daly uses extreme examples such as firefighters refusing to rescue someone dumb enough to smoke in bed, but he is not talking about people in life and death situations. He is talking about people who have willfully and knowingly bought property they can’t afford. I disagree that, if I have a problem with having to pick up the tab for their irresponsibility, I am terribly uncharitable.

WASHINGTON – “Adopt-a-seminarian” programs to support and encourage young men studying for the priesthood are pretty common in U.S. dioceses, and programs like that for young women could help foster vocations to religious life, said Benedictine Sister Michelle Catherine Sinkhorn.

SAN FRANCISCO – Two days after San Francisco Archbishop George H. Niederauer requested that a Catholic parish cancel a scheduled performance of a gay-themed play by high school students, the University of San Francisco stepped in and allowed the play to be performed on its campus.

The administrations of The Cardinal Gibbons School and The Seton Keough High School, located on adjacent campuses in Southwest Baltimore, have announced an innovative partnership between the two schools that leverages their proximity to each other, as well as strategic alliances with area corporations, enabling the schools to both reduce operating costs and offer dynamic new programs aimed at strengthening Catholic high school education in Southwest Baltimore.

One dinner roll remained in the basket. There were four when the waitress placed the basket on the table, but each of the three diners had taken and eaten one roll with the meal, leaving a solitary one. Would one of the men ask if either dinner companion wanted the roll? Or would one of the men simply grab the last roll and consume it? The matter was resolved when, without saying a word, Richard extended his hand into the basket, took the bread, broke it into three pieces, and gave each person a portion of the remaining roll. One could not help but feel the presence of Jesus in this breaking and sharing of bread. It was a very special spiritual moment.

On March 9, President Barack Obama gave my pro-life mother a nasty 95th birthday present: an executive order rescinding the restrictions that President Bush had placed on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. As policy, the executive order was even more an irresponsible blank check than many had feared it would be, according to Yuval Levin, who once worked on these questions at the president’s Council on Bioethics. Nor did the executive order deign to even nod to the moral debate that has raged around this issue for years. The president tried to do that in a speech announcing the executive order. Yet the speech, containing four fibs and a waffle, was even worse.

If nuns were ruling the world, peace and justice would reign!

By the time you read this article, the faithful will have journeyed halfway through Lent. However, this message comes as a reflection to discern that we still have time to walk with Jesus and to strengthen our relationship with Christ. Lent is our time to follow Jesus.