July 01, 2024
Celebrating America’s independence is on the calendar this week, which means for most it’ll be a slow week at the office. Summer is nearly halfway over, and as we reflect on the courage it took for the United States to stand up to the British Empire, it’s a good time to reflect philosophically on what we truly have gained.
Read ArticleTags: Community
March 11, 2024
In vitro fertilization is back in the news. The Alabama Supreme Court in recent weeks issued a ruling that recognized frozen embryos stored for use in IVF were accorded the rights of personhood under the law. Politicians on both sides of the aisle latched onto this political football, with everyone praising what they consider to be the essential good of IVF as an answer to a couple’s desire to have a child. Regrettably, they’re still wrong on the ethics and on the facts.
Read ArticleTags: Political Life
January 29, 2024
A frequent criticism of Christians is that, in times of great sorrow or difficulty, we fall back on platitudes rather than meaningful action. It’s true that we quote Scripture as a form of consolation and encouragement, but it should hardly be regarded as a platitude.
Read ArticleTags: Spirituality
November 13, 2023
It’s challenging to remember the feelings we experienced at the election of Pope Francis. A total wild card, a true Vatican outsider, swept onto the world stage and took the Chair of St. Peter by storm. It was, in some ways, a bit refreshing. Pope Benedict XVI was deeply intellectual, providing the theological underpinnings that we need to sustain the faith. Still, we longed for the charismatic and energetic days of Pope John Paul II.
Read ArticleTags: Community
July 03, 2023
It’s hard to not be grateful when we realize the blessing of being born into this country. For all of its faults, we’ve built a Republic that thrives on pluralism. In South America, poverty, gang warfare, and narcoterrorism rule the day. In Europe, a land war rages on. In Asia, autocrats squeeze out dissent at home and abroad. Slavery, violence, oppression and subjugation are themes of human history, and the continue today unabated. And yet, in North America, we are at peace.
Read ArticleTags: Political Life
January 24, 2022
One of the best outcomes from majoring in Philosophy is how it nurtured my sense of curiosity. The toolset that I gained helps me look critically at the world and think deeply about issues. Alison and I’s story is in its twelfth year. We started dating the final semester of college, and the story continues today.
Read ArticleTags: Virtue
January 10, 2022
2021 was supposed to be the year of civility and normalcy. Well, we didn’t get it. Instead, we got more acrimony and animosity. Last year I wrote about walking under the stars and listening to the Bible. I had started the
Bible in a Year podcast with Fr. Mike Schmitz. I didn’t make it past day 25 or so, but I’m starting over.
Read ArticleTags: Community
January 03, 2022
What a lousy two years we’ve had. Disruption, distortion, and distrust maligned what was supposed to be a grand opening of a new decade. Peace, prosperity, and stability reigned, and we collectively looked forward to more of the same. How quickly that all faded.
Read ArticleTags: Prayer
December 13, 2021
I rarely go to the movies. In fact, I think the last new movie that I saw in theaters was Mission Impossible 6 in the summer of 2018. I intended to go see the new James Bond film in October when it came out, but I missed the narrow window. I watched it this weekend and it was terrible.
Read ArticleTags: Virtue
October 25, 2021
If you wonder why society has come unglued, why hated and bigotry are suddenly spotted everywhere, and it’s because of this. When we reject the fundamental sacredness and specialness of life, acting against it becomes easy and unglued.
Read ArticleTags: Virtue
October 11, 2021
Hero is a common word these days. Healthcare workers are heroes for putting themselves and their families at risk to provide care for the sick. Grocery workers are heroes for taking similar risks and keeping us fed. The list goes on and on.
Read ArticleApril 12, 2021
Divine Mercy Sunday was yesterday. This annual jubilee is a reset available for anyone who wants it. More importantly, it’s a reminder of the depths of God’s mercy.
Read ArticleApril 05, 2021
What a Lent! After a year of pandemic and lockdowns, this Spring is starting to feel quite refreshing. Vaccine rollouts continue, along with positive studies on their effectiveness. Business is picking up, people are coming out of their homes, and life seems beautiful again.
Read ArticleTags: Spirituality
January 11, 2021
Something remarkable happens when you engage in a daily habit of prayer. I’ve written before about attunement, being more aware of God’s presence in your life. When you take the time to make prayer a priority in your life, you experience these moments when you feel as if God is speaking directly to you and to your circumstance. I had that experience at Mass yesterday.
Read ArticleTags: Political Life
December 28, 2020
The last week of the year is traditionally a pensive time for me. In an ordinary year, I would wrap up major projects, revamp my productivity systems, review my annual goals, and map out the next year. This year is different.
Read ArticleTags: Political Life Spirituality
December 21, 2020
The Fourth Week of Advent is here, and our time of preparation is coming to a close. We’ve spent nearly a month awaiting the arrival of the King, and our waiting is nearly done.
Read ArticleTags: Sacraments
November 16, 2020
America’s political class went into Election Day with a very specific idea of how things were going to go. As the returns came in that evening, a clear picture emerged. Americans are much more moderate and level-headed than our social media feeds and the legacy media would have us believe.
Read ArticleTags: Political Life
November 02, 2020
Election day is finally here. What a cycle it’s been! In many respects, this election cycle has been just as dramatic as any other. It’s the biggest, most contentious, most important election of your life! We’re either going to have a country or a civil war starting on Wednesday morning. At least that’s what we’re told. The truth is, people have predicted the downfall of America since its beginning. Yet, here we are.
Read ArticleTags: Political Life
October 26, 2020
This blog has
defended Pope Francis. He told us to go out into the Church and the world to make a mess. His pontificate has certainly achieved that objective. The Vatican’s moral abdication on China is disconcerting. Over a million ethic Uyghurs arbitrarily detained in concentration camps, and the Vatican said nothing. The Chinese Communist Party’s insistence on Sinicization of religion and even the accord allowing the CCP to co-appoint bishops adds to the concern. In addition to issues on the world stage, Pope Francis has regularly minimized the primary troubles of our day to include marriage, family life, and abortion.
Read ArticleTags: Communication
September 21, 2020
Getting to Mass on a weekday is hard for me, and that was before the pandemic. The difficulty is not handling my four kids by myself for half an hour. It’s getting everyone up, dressed, fed, and in the pew by 8:30am. Lately our parish switched Mass times for the weekday liturgies to 5:00pm, another challenge for parents of little ones.
Read ArticleTags: Communication
June 15, 2020
We live comfortably, but that’s rarely the experience of Catholics. Many, if not most Catholics throughout history lived very rough lives. They’ve been outcasts, despised, reviled, jailed, tortured, and killed. In this pandemic, we too share in this experience of discomfort. How will we respond?
Read ArticleTags: Reflections
August 19, 2019
I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on the mass shootings gripping our society. Young men, disaffected and isolated, suffering from mental illness, take up arms and attack unsuspecting victims in acts of extreme violence. These events are things that we’re used to seeing in Europe, Asia, or the Middle East. We’re not accustomed to hearing about them happening in our schools, offices, and shopping centers.
Read ArticleTags: Political Life Virtue
June 24, 2019
Many Catholics in the United States felt in the opening years of the millennium that we had stared down our inner-demons. The uproar over the sexual abuse of children by members of the clergy was justified, even if justice was never truly served. Consider the fate of Cardinal Law. He was ejected from his leadership role in the Archdiocese of Boston and lived out his final days in Rome, where he reportedly had an outsized influence over the governance of the Church. After all, he had nothing to do but go to meetings and lend his suggestions.
Read ArticleTags: Virtue
October 29, 2018
There are many things that I’m getting used to now that I live in a house in a neighborhood. Living in an apartment or in a rural community, there aren’t that many door-to-door solicitors that bother. Nowadays, whenever anyone knocks on my door, they’re either selling a home security system or their religion.
Read ArticleTags: Generosity
May 15, 2018
A few years ago, my parents’ parish redesigned their website. I have an interest in these sorts of things, so I complemented my mom one day on its beauty and usability. As it turns out, in a parish full of technologists, they were paying a 3rd party company to build and run their website. My mom expressed dismay that no one had stepped forward to take on that responsibility.
Read ArticleTags: Community
September 08, 2016
The modern pro-life movement has focused on the issue of abortion. It would seem that is an appropriate focus given the scope of abortion and the opportunity for change. There have been 59M abortion deaths in the United States since 1973. Even so, to be pro-life requires that we be more than just anti-abortion.
Read ArticleTags: Current Events Political Life
August 25, 2016
I seldom take the time to read editorials. While the premise is good, the execution scarcely follows through. They tend to be pejorative, one-sided, and offer little intellectual value to the conversation. Instead, they simply validate those who already agree with a particular viewpoint and shut out the rest. I came across what ended up being a rather
amusing editorial in which the author suggested that Pope Francis should resign. Furthermore, should he decline such an enticing offer, the faithful should force him out of office.
Read ArticleTags: Current Events
March 17, 2016
Over the past several decades, the pressure to divorce one’s faith from one’s work has become increasingly strong. We’ve done it for a very long time in our political life, even as far back as the candidacy of John F. Kennedy who gave a landmark speech in which he aimed to assuage the American voter that as president, he wouldn’t be beholden to the papacy. This pseudo-logic, when taken at face value, presents itself as common sense; if my faith interferes with your life, then as a holder of public office, I shouldn’t use my faith so as to allow you to have absolute freedom. The problem with this line of thinking is that by leaving behind the tenants of one’s faith in the workplace, we all lose out on the very tangible goods that accompany faith.
Read ArticleTags: Current Events Political Life Virtue
February 22, 2016
“In every interaction you have with people, you can either give them life or take some away.” -Toby Mac
The passing of Justice Antonin Scalia is a great tragedy. Although all things are done in God’s time, I, along with many others, selfishly wish that he could have been permitted to remain with us longer. His death raises many interesting lessons that we can apply to our lives. Truly this was a man who lived the haunting words of Christ, “Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you (falsely) because of me.”
Read ArticleTags: Current Events Political Life
January 18, 2016
I've been struggling lately to defend my beliefs amid our culture shifts. It's not that I think that I'm wrong, but it’s that I'm made to feel like I'm wrong. It's the bitter poison that Modernism tries to feed us. Modernism is a supremacist ideology that seeks to suppress and supplant all other thought systems. When you get down to the meat of Modernism's arguments, it's mostly semantics. New is not always better than old. New is not always destructive. Old is not always wrong. What isn't semantics, however, is logic. The fatal flaw of Modernism is that it cannot withstand even the first buffets of logic.
Read ArticleTags: Current Events Political Life
December 31, 2015
Jesus’ words always call us on to greater things, to be better people than we are today. Jesus’ words seem hyperbolic, but they are anything but hyperbolic. He was calling us to live the lives we were made to live, to reach the levels of true freedom that God had always intended for us.
Read ArticleTags: Current Events Prayer
November 16, 2015
I'm fairly certain in every generation, as art pushes the boundaries of cultural norms and acceptability, there's always a crowd of people who assert that the new forms of art are unacceptable and in some ways corrupting. In modern society, as the boundaries of music are broken down and it's availability reaches its apex, so too has the sheer amount of music. New forms of music are emerging, as are new subforms. As we all consume more and more music, the importance of the message and impact becomes paramount.
Read ArticleTags: Virtue
November 09, 2015
For perhaps the first time in my life, I'm reading the
Acts of the Apostles. Alison gave me the fantastic Ignatius Catholic Study Bible for Father's Day this year and I've been working my way through the Gospels and other books of the New Testament. I wrote earlier this year about how I've been reading the
Bible footnotes along with the actual text and how much richer of an experience it is
Read ArticleTags: Reflections
November 03, 2015
I don't bother to read the surveys that pollsters do of Catholics. It turns into an exercise in, "I'm more Catholic than you," and the number of people who self-identify as Catholic is way too high. Honestly, if you consistently miss Mass, it's time to stop self-identifying as Catholic. It’s like being a vegetarian who eats meat four times a week. However, one thing that every survey does show is that the
frequency of Mass attendance directly correlates to agreement with the Magisterium.
Read ArticleTags: Sacraments
October 26, 2015
If I were a priest, the standing weekly appointment that I'd most look forward to, and at the same time most dread, is Reconciliation. Confession is a beautiful, necessary, and needed Sacrament. Yet, for the priest, it also means that he must stand in the place of Christ, already a challenging role, and receive the burdens of everyone. I imagine that experiencing the fight for good and evil in such a real way can be an emotional challenge.
Read ArticleTags: Sacraments
October 22, 2015
During Pope Francis' recent visit to the United States, I was inundated with news articles, Tweets, and Facebook posts about the Church, often from people who aren't Catholic. Some of the reporting was quite pitiful, and a few of the Tweets and Facebook posts were inane. One of the most shocking Tweets I read was about the Papal Mass at Madison Square Gardens. The twit asked why they made the Mass a ticketed event when it should be open to anyone who wants to go.
Read ArticleTags: Current Events Reflections
October 20, 2015
We're getting deep into the 2016 election, even though it's more than a year away. The fields for both political parties are getting plenty of attention for the wild card candidates that have thrown their hats into the ring. There's a level of excitement about the race, but really for all of the wrong reasons.
Read ArticleTags: Political Life
October 12, 2015
We live in a large society, and so the idea that we can have things exactly the way we want them is unrealistic. Even in our own marriages and families, when there are two decision makers, neither spouse can have complete control over how the household is run. We need to become experts in compromise, an all but lost art in a society that loves drama and rewards polarization. We achieve more by working together than by remaining intransigent.
Read ArticleTags: Current Events Political Life
October 06, 2015
The reporting and commenting on the Church these days is insufferable. I skip over most articles, including those in the Wall Street Journal because they completely miss the mark. Even worse, although some articles contain bits of good information, reading them as if I wasn't Catholic, I can see how ambiguity of phrasing could give the complete wrong impression of the Church.
Read ArticleTags: Current Events
September 24, 2015
If you have a question about what the Church teaches, just go read the documents. Start with
the Catechism and then go and read supporting documents.
Read ArticleTags: Education
September 15, 2015
Public opinion polls should not inform morality. Yet, as we enter into another long and grueling national election cycle, we're already starting to experience just that. Politicians are taking stands on issues that aren't aligned with their true beliefs, but rather they’re taking stands that the polls tell them are palatable to the electorate. Perhaps no issue speaks more clearly to this reality than abortion.
Read ArticleTags: Current Events Political Life
August 31, 2015
We find ourselves, yet again, as Americans doing some serious soul-searching after last week's incident of gun violence. Two young journalists gunned down on live TV in a chilling video clip that's been seen by millions the world over. The assailant, hours later, taking his own life.
Read ArticleTags: Current Events Political Life
June 29, 2015
One of the great tragedies of our modern era is our misunderstanding of the value of children. For a wide range of reasons, people tend to hold a very pessimistic and self-centered view on children. This contraceptive mindset has brought us to a very sad place where people miss out on the absolute joys of raising children.
Read ArticleTags: Parenting
April 28, 2015
Last December, during one of our regular visits to my parent's house, my dad handed me a book of his to read. This happens from time to time; a book that he got a great deal out of will end up in my temporary library to enjoy. Since I've committed to a habit of regular reading this year, my book queue is able to take on these random offerings.
Read ArticleTags: Current Events Education Political Life
March 17, 2015
I've recently started working on a family genealogy project. In the past, I hadn't much cared about my family's history beyond my grandparents, but lately I've become fascinated with our family's story. I'm basing all of my research around Benedict as the starting person and am excited about the journey that this is taking me on. While many of the discoveries have been very exciting, I've noticed something else that's rather tragic. In keeping with what I suspect is par for the course today, in the last 115 years, it's nearly impossible to find any branch of my family within two generations that hasn't been touched by divorce.
Read ArticleTags: Communication Education Virtue
February 16, 2015
Today we observe President's Day and I think it's an excellent time for us to consider our political role.
Read ArticleTags: Current Events Political Life
February 02, 2015
Last week, we celebrated Catholic Schools Week. While this post would've been much more appropriate had I posted it then, the editorial calendar simply wouldn't permit it. I would still like to share some thoughts about Catholic Schools in America and the role that they had in forming me.
Read ArticleTags: Education
January 22, 2015
Today marks both a sobering anniversary and a special anniversary. Today is the anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that ushered in a new era of misnomers in healthcare and encouraged a culture that viewed children as the ultimate burden, as opposed to the ultimate blessing.
Read ArticleTags: Current Events Education Political Life
September 26, 2014
I have a difficult time imagining a physical persecution of happening in the United States. I have difficulty imagining how far we’d have to fall to get to a point where the citizenry accepted mass executions of people based on their faith alone.
Read ArticleTags: Current Events Reflections
September 19, 2014
In the 8th grade, I read the great American Classic, “To Kill A Mockingbird.” One of the scenes in the book that has stuck with me all of these years is Atticus Finch explaining to his daughter Scout that he can’t be one person in public and another person at home. That integrity of character is something we should all be striving for.
Read ArticleTags: Current Events Reflections
July 01, 2014
Sharing our faith boldly with those around us can be challenging. You can’t just be chillin by the coffee pot on Monday morning and lead with, “Hey, how was your weekend? I encountered the Risen Christ through the Holy Sacrament of the Altar and now I’m a living tabernacle."
Read ArticleTags: Sacraments
June 12, 2014
Some people believe that in Christian Marriage chastity is no longer a struggle. False.
Read ArticleTags: Sexuality
May 15, 2014
The average age of newlyweds is climbing in the United States. More and more young couples are delaying marriage for a significant period of time. It’s a troubling trend, but why are young people actively avoiding tying the knot?
Read ArticleTags: Current Events Education
April 10, 2014
You can often tell how good something is simple by considering whether or not you would buy a cheaper generic version. Grocery stores all across the nation have entire product lines of generic products. You can buy generic Coke (why bother?), generic dish soap, generic trash bags, and yes, even generic Oreos.
Read ArticleTags: Sexuality
March 27, 2014
Every day, everywhere that we go, we have the opportunity to show those around us what it means to be married. By our words and our deeds we implicitly share our experience of marriage with the world. What that means is that we have the opportunity to show how wonderful it is, or to witness poorly to it.
Read ArticleTags: Current Events Education
October 01, 2013
If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I have a cat.
Read ArticleTags: Parenting
August 23, 2013
When you get married, you take on two responsibilities. First, you take responsibility for the care of your wife and any children you may be given. Second, you take on the responsibility for reflecting Christ’s love for the Church.Read ArticleTags: Reflections Sacraments
August 22, 2013
Marriage is a lot of things. It is painful, it is difficult, it is challenging. It is joyful, it is fulfilling, it is complete. Marriage is enduring, it is final.Read ArticleTags: Current Events Education
May 28, 2013
Growing up, I received most of my education from Catholic schools, thanks to the sacrifice of my parents. Each year, we would celebrate Vocations Week and have guest speakers come in and talk about vocations.Read ArticleTags: Current Events Education
April 04, 2013
Catholics tend to each have their way of practicing their faith. Thankfully, Alison and I found a parish near our home that fits ours. But, unfortunately, we weren't so lucky on Ash Wednesday.
Read ArticleTags: Manliness
