common sense
Feast Day Ramblings
I admit it. I’m a decadent Roman. While I admire my friends of the Oriental Catholic persuasion who celebrate “Cheesefare Sunday” today in preparation for Lent (and have already whittled away their meat intake a week ago), I myself will hold out until Ash Wednesday to begin my fasting. Indeed, on this last Sunday before Lent, the burying of the “Alleluia” is…
What Our Grandparents Have Always Done
I’ve been following opera and Italian food expert Fred Plotkin for a number of years now. Politically, philosophically (in large measure) and theologically, we would likely find ourselves opponents. He is a self-described “pleasure activist and egalitarian,” whereas I assent to an orthodox understanding of a divinely ordered hierarchy in the universe and recognize–in a phrase that may…
Discussion: Men and the Church
Recently I had the privilege of being asked by Mr. Matthew Christoff to sit down for an interview on the state of men in the Church. Mr. Christoff’s apostolate–The New Emangelization and Catholic Man Night–is becoming increasingly popular and provides solid spiritual food for Catholic men. Where go Catholic men…there goes the Church. You can listen…
Needed: Catholic Cab Drivers and Bartenders
Some years back–in an interview on EWTN–Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago, was addressing some of the pressing needs of the Church. He said–and I paraphrase–“we need Catholic cab drivers and bartenders.” It was a comment that elicited a chuckle, but the truth of it was very serious and speaks to the way the Church understands…
The Value of Preaching to the Choir
By Dale Ahlquist I went to a very secular liberal arts college. Like most secular liberal arts colleges, it had been founded by a church. Its church affiliation had long since ended, but it still had a beautiful, Gothic-style chapel in the center of campus. The other remnant of its religious past was that there…