St. Joseph the Worker—Hanging on the wall in my childhood home was a simple image of Joseph the carpenter, working with a piece of wood. My dad for most of his life was also a carpenter, building homes for his small business, The Village Carpenter, and thus especially liked this image. On May 1, we…
This is the fourth month of our lives being impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic. We have gone from total uncertainty of the length and strength of the virus, to having some knowledge without definite assurance of the accuracy of the information. We hunkered down and did our best to find ways to usefully apply ourselves,…
In a recent First Things article titled “What is Economics For,” Senator Marco Rubio explains how the teachings of the Catholic Church on the dignity of work and workers can rebuild the American economy. Rubio begins his article by quoting Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum: “Work and working people have a fundamental dignity that all societies are bound to respect and…
As a schoolboy, George Washington copied out in elegant script the 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation. Later on, our first President tried to figure out how a head of state who was not a monarch should conduct himself with his fellow citizens. His solution was to be a gentleman, obedient to…
All creation emanated from the voice of God uttering: “Let there be light.” There was nothing and no one yet to hear it, only God himself. As animate creatures came into being, they were able to make sounds, and some of them are beautiful, but only human beings have the gift of being able to…
One of the highlights of the recent, fourth annual Principled Entrepreneurship conference organized by the Napa Institute in conjunction with the Catholic University of America’s Busch School of Business, was Carly Fiorina’s talk, “Work and Spirituality.” Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP), drew from her personal experiences to address a wide range of practical…
August 10, 2009 Phoenix, AZ (CNA)—“Health care reform is a good thing,” New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan told CNA on Wednesday during in interview in Phoenix, Arizona. However, if it “leads to the destruction of life, then we say it’s no longer health care at all – it’s unhealthy care and we can’t be part of that.” Responding…
I recently read a meditation by Frances Fernandez from In Conversation With God on the topic of human respect which has stirred a lot of reflection and thinking over the last few days. Do we ever stop to consider how many times a day our thinking and actions are influenced by a concern for what…
June 26, 2009 As the street protests in Iran move into their second week we must wonder, just what is it, that is taking place? There are so many questions and so little information from commentators with the experience to tell us just what it is that is happening. The first question that comes to mind is, just…
