Life in New York City can be hard for anyone who has difficulty accommodating paradoxes. For instance, the same City Council that has just banned the sale of foie gras on the grounds that it involves cruelty to force-fed geese, previously made New York the first city to pay mothers from other states to come…
Invite God into Your Life and into a world in desperate need of spiritual solutions for today’s challenges, a review of Rev William Watson, S.J.,’s Inviting God Into Your Life: A Practical Guide for Prayer. We live in turbulent times characterized by injustice, violence, and misinformation (what we use to call propaganda). Happiness and peace…
A 1973 film directed by Orson Welles was about forgers, and it turned out to be something of a forgery itself. Some of the information in “F for Fake” was itself faked. Later on, Welles claimed that this was deliberately done as a kind of joke, and he took to calling it an “essay” and…
Anyone who knows me understands that among the books I’ve written, one of my favorites is The Truth About Employee Engagement. My affinity for this book is the simplicity and efficacy of its message: employees only need three things from their managers to love their work. Really. And if that doesn’t sound unbelievable enough, those…
If “religio” is translated as being bound to a particular outlook on life, then everyone is religious. The saints simply have bound themselves to true religion. Today that is a socially unacceptable assertion, but “political correctness” is itself a form of religion. Early Christians were condemned as atheists because they refused to worship the gods…
It is time for us to look at some of the things influencing good, God-fearing people in the United States and to identify what is holding them back from taking action to accomplish an objective or preventing them from being people who don’t just know their faith but live their faith outwardly. Two of these…
Last week’s canonization of Saint John Henry Newman will have universal influences that I trust will include our own parish. It should be remembered that his achievements, for the most part, hardly seemed successful at the time. He might even be called a patron saint of the disappointed. Newman was so nervous in his university…
More than forty years ago, I told a wise Protestant theologian that I had been reading the Apologia pro Vita Sua of John Henry Newman (1801-1890). He warned me that it is “a dangerous book.” That was just the sort of advice that makes a young thinker all the more eager to read it. And so I did,…
CNA—It is important to consider what we are willing to die for, Archbishop Charles Chaput reminded students and faculty in a speech at the University of Notre Dame on Friday. “It’s a good thing, a vital thing, to consider what we’re willing to die for,” Chaput said in a lecture given to the Constitutional Studies…
If Warren Buffet hadn’t conquered his fear of public speaking, he may never have become the billionaire we admire today. He was “terrified” of public speaking and took specific steps to overcome his fear. He took the Dale Carnegie course and today, his certificate is the only “degree” that he displays in his office. He…
Book Reviews of Sharyl Attkisson’s The Smear and Howard Kurtz’s Media Madness. Journalism is in my blood. My grandfather was editor of the Chicago Times and then served as Executive Editor of the Chicago Sun-Times after the Times was acquired by Marshall Field Enterprises. My mother followed in his footsteps with a local newsletter, SCOOP,…
At the start of October, life in Manhattan recovers from those late September weeks when the opening of the United Nations General Assembly ties up traffic, even blocking many streets, and takes over many hotels and clubs for expensive receptions—some of the costliest, it seems, being those of some of the poorest countries. With so…
by Tim Busch and Kevin Stidham—Another Supreme Court term has ended, and once again the court failed to revisit the question of abortion. In our time, it seems that abortion is discussed everywhere except the Supreme Court, where most justices seem intent to do anything to avoid the topic. And still, each passing term, the…
In thinking of angels, you need humility, for a couple of reasons. First of all, a cynical culture mocks anyone who believes that angels exist in any way that is real rather than sentimental. Secondly, since angels, who were created before humans, are intelligent beyond any material measurement, that means they are smarter than any…
As with quotations that are variously attributed, journalists including Charles Anderson Dana of the “New York Tribune” and John B. Bogart of the “New York Sun” are said to have coined the aphorism: “‘Dog bites man’ does not make the news, but ‘Man bites dog’ does.” Human nature is fascinated by what is exceptional and…
As we approach October, the month of the Holy Rosary, we remember and rededicate ourselves to the simple request of Our Lady at Fatima that the whole world recite the Rosary daily for peace in the family and in the world. We may be personally aware of the life-changing power of this prayer in our…
Archbishop Chaput delivered the following keynote remarks on September 12, 2019 during the seventh annual St. Joseph the Worker Medal Awards at Malvern Retreat House— I don’t have any illusions about earning the award you’ve given me tonight. But I’m very glad to be here, because it gives me a chance to join in honoring…
Horst Schulze was at age five, a boy with a dream. He wanted to work in a hotel. The rest is history. He went on to be the founding president and COO of one of the foremost brands in the hotel industry, the Ritz-Carlton. Under his legendary leadership, Ritz-Carlton became the first and only hotel…
From time to time someone will remark that our national flag hanging from the choir loft appears to be faded. It is actually in good condition, but the white stripes are printed with the names of those who were killed in the attack on our nation on September 11, 2001. Hardly anyone in our parish…
It is gratifying each week to hear from many friends of the parish across our country and abroad, bringing to mind the words of John Wesley: “The whole world is my parish.” That can be said ever more fervently by any pastor, for each parish is a microcosm of the ecclesiastical presence of the Body…
