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Claudette Colvin: The spark before Rosa Parks
On March 2, 1955, Claudette was a 15-year-old frightened Black girl who refused to give up her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was jailed nine months before Rosa Parks was arrested for the same civil disobedience, but not in the same way.
Add and multiply to subtract our losses
In a time when we feel deeply divided and we’ve lost so much, what could we add or multiply to help those who need it most?
Names for public spaces matter
As our nation and church continue to suffer the lethal effects of their ongoing failures to fully acknowledge and atone for centuries of slavery and segregation, the new Norman Francis Parkway is an important beacon of hope.
Exhaustion meets new beginnings
The cavalier use of racist language in our public discourse, the rise of an emerging nationalism built upon anti-immigrant sentiments and the disdain for people who struggle with poverty, among other sociocultural misfits in our day, demand a communal examination of conscience.
History’s greatest inaugural speeches
Inaugurations speak to our innate need to start over from time to time, to express new hopes and fears, to realign our priorities and make sure the path we’re walking on is the right one.
A final requiem for an extraordinary nun and champion of Black Catholic history
In a racially and economically tumultuous year that saw a significant rise in calls for the church to acknowledge and make reparations for its largely unreconciled practices of slavery and segregation, the loss of Sister Reginald, and her expertise in African American Catholic history, was especially wrenching.
Do you hear what I hear? Family’s ‘bracket’ determines Christmas carol favorites
The Smolka family explores how favorite Christmas carols stack up.
The joy of Advent and pregnancy
The Advent season is a reminder that our own childlike faith can hardly imagine what God has in store for us.
Christmas prayer: ‘Do you want to hold him?’
As I hold the savior of the world, all tiny and baby bald, smaller than a loaf of bread, I don’t do anything. Nor say anything. Silence is often the best conduit of God.
All Saints’ Day: History and traditions
The author of the Letter to the Hebrews wrote, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter […]