Members of the archdiocesan central office staff recently attended a workshop that featured an extensive session on prayer. I’ll never pretend to be a theologian  but I have navigated tough situations and times over many years on instinct. That alone tells me that the Jesus’ teaching in Luke 11 should …

Q: Are the homilies of priests and deacons critiqued? The homily quality among preachers varies considerably. Some are outstanding; others are poor. Are continuing education classes available and/or required for clergy especially in the area of homily development and presentation? A: Yes, the homilies of priests and deacons, are always …

Watching my father care for his father proved a chore for a pre-teen boy with his head full of kid thoughts and body full of kid energy. They did not speak much on those days when we went to pick up laundry and tidy up grandpa’s tiny apartment over Frenchie’s …

What’s the difference between a frozen dinner and a millennial? The frozen dinner needs a couple minutes to be ready. Millennials are ready now. That’s what we tell our elders right? We say we’re ready for more responsibility at work, more money, more stuff to do. We go on about …

Q: In Matthew 24, Jesus says no one knows when the world will end. He says that the Son does not know, only the Father. The Son is consubstantial with the Father in the Trinity. How can the Father know and the Son not know? This puzzles me. A: The …

Dallas. Baton Rouge, Falcon Heights. Click any of the above hyperlinks and Wikipedia will fill you in on the violence our nation experienced last week. This isn’t what I wanted to write about. I had much lighter fare in mind, but on the night of the Dallas shootings I found …

Danny Diego always wore a huge smile. A guy who had beat childhood polio, he was not a man terribly impressed with obstacles. But as circulation manager of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin in Ontario, Calif., 20 years ago, the smile would become a near grimace every New Year’s Day …

A 24-hour a day Mass times resource that anyone with internet can access is objectively speaking , a great thing. But for the young collegiate Catholic, it is also an excuse killer. When my parents’ generation went to college, they no doubt did a little research on the parishes near …

C.S. Lewis famously likened the task of Christian apologetics to a a jeweler displaying a beautiful diamond. To appreciate its luminous qualities, the jeweler prepared it for viewing by holding it over black velvet fabric. Only against such a contrast can the dazzling colors dance and sparkle. So it is, …

“How Catholic Are We?” asks the April 2016 edition of Cincinnati Magazine. Over the next 20 well-designed pages is a package of well-written and well-researched stories and factoids that quantify the changes in church attendance and population in the greater Cincinnati metropolitan area. The numbers and sidebar stories support the …