guest commentary
Autumn: Patience and promise amid the change
For me, patience and promise summarize the season of autumn, the term I prefer to fall, since it connotes a year’s “passing” rather than its “decline.” It’s a season I have long regarded with both joy and sadness.
Woe to those who gossip
Gossip may be shared between two people, let’s say by a tweet and reply or a Facebook post on another person’s wall, but it is shared with the knowledge that both parties’ followers will see it. What is most pernicious is that it’s often shared not in spite of that knowledge but because of it.
In difficult times, hope sustains us
Hope is the courageous work of waiting for the solution, for things to get better.
New life in Catholic education
The dogged efforts to hold on to or retrofit legacy models failed to halt the large-scale exit of about half of Catholic schools since the ’60s. Nevertheless, in the past two decades, with urgency and many people stepping up, new approaches and mindsets have burst with boldness and vigor.
Where do we go from here? Look inward
The church is in a unique position to offer forums for frank discussions of race and where we go from here.
‘Moby-Dick’ and the online search for identity
A million comments and tweets appear every second seeking attention, a kindred spirit, a witness. Each communique from the keyboard of users worldwide is one more shout into the abyss waiting for an echo of acknowledgment.
Grievance and Civil Rights
We must reset our bearings as a nation so that our collective future is not just whatever happens next but a conscious pursuit of our national credo: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Learning to love as God loves
The greater people’s faults, the more difficult it becomes to see the good in them, which is why we must practice this skill in little ways with all those we encounter.
An experience with racial injustice
“Since I am doing your work as well as mine and know everything about the accounting system, why can’t I be his boss?”
Cops and Padres
There’s a phrase in Juvenal’s “Satires” that might be translated as “Who will guard the guardians?” That’s the right question to ask for both police racism and clergy abuse.