For several years, many of us Catholics in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati have been including in Mass a prayer for vocations, written by Archbishop Emeritus Dennis M. Schnurr shortly after his move to Cincinnati. I must confess that, initially, I mildly resisted the general theme of this prayer. This is …

Two of the most intriguing women characters in all of world literature are the eponymous protagonists of Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina (1878) and Sigrid Undset’s trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter (1920, ’21, and ’22). Both novels deal with similar themes: Christian faith, wealthy families, stormy marriages, and the cultural and social …

This book review starts with a two-part quiz: In the New Testament (1) what is the earliest appearance of the words in the Consecration of the Eucharist, and (2) who said them? If your answer is (1) one of the synoptic Gospels as the earliest appearance and (2) Jesus—of course!—is …

The first creation account in Genesis 1 is among the most misunderstood chapters in the Bible. The confusion comes less from the words on the page than from a prejudicial determination of what Genesis 1 is trying to tell us. But it is in its very literary form that the …

The Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to solidarity as a “virtue” (no. 1942). Like any other virtue, solidarity develops through the practices and habits of moral agents. Solidarity is both essential to true human being and the virtue by which our fallen social nature is to be restored. The …

As Catholics, we do not make a hard separation between the sacred and the profane, nor do we see “secular” things as somehow inhabiting a different world from “religious” things. Yes, we can identify the conceptual difference between the secular and the religious for certain purposes, but these are two …

Over the first several weeks of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV has staked out a deliberate perimeter of emphases that appears to encompass the dominant theme of his pontificate. The first stake in the ground was the choice of his name. Beginning with Pope St. Leo I—also known as Leo …

August begins the annual ritual of children dragging their parents to the shopping mall for new clothes, backpacks and sneakers, in preparation for their return to classrooms, playgrounds and athletics fields. The nervous anticipation of going “back to school” is as common to the American experience of growing up as …

Genres of dramatic or literary works are identified in multiple ways, but one of the most common ways distinguishes between tragedy and comedy. In this dichotomy, the Gospel begins with aspects of tragedy but ends with a comedic resolution. A tragic work is one in which an intractable problem either …

In his 1988 song “Death is Not the End,” Bob Dylan wrote, “When you’re standing on the crossroads / That you cannot comprehend / Just remember that death is not the end / And all your dreams have vanished / And you don’t know what’s up the bend / Just …