Regular Contributions
Truth in Advertising: Promoting the Catholic Campaign for Human Development in Chicago
One long-standing complaint about the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), an annual Catholic “poverty” appeal, is that it has consistently misrepresented its work to the people from whom it solicits donations. CCHD exists to create progressive social change. An analysis of CCHD’s nation-wide 2013-2014 grants – using the most recent information available 1 –…
What the Catechism said on voting 100 years ago
Today is the mid-term election in the United States. At stake are state governorships and the representative positions. I’m sure many readers are painfully aware of the debates and nonsense of politics. There’s often a lot of debate over the role of Catholics in elections, and particularly what to do when you are faced with bad choices, no…
Make some friends in high places. Poor Souls: Who will pray for you?
While there is a bit of calendar hijinks that happen due to the way Sundays translate some feasts to adjacent days, but at the same time feasts on other days are made optional (such as All Saints’ Day yesterday), it can be confusing as to when you ought to pray for the Poor Souls in…
St. John Paul II and a Caution against the Age of Fraud
Fifty or a hundred years from now, the sociologists that write books to describe our time will have only one term to discuss today: fraud. It’s everywhere, and people think nothing of it. I think that’s because they don’t realize that the ancient Greeks long before the time of Christ, determined that there would be a time…
Out of Depth
Minne’s Diner is a fantastic breakfast joint in Rogers, Minnesota. Right off I-94, the place reminds one of so many other classic breakfast places in the big city–only the hours are different, i.e., this place actually has a closing time. It was here, last Thursday, that I and some colleagues gathered for breakfast and Evelyn Waugh’s short story,…
CCHD 2013-2014: Hasn’t the Catholic Campaign for Human Development improved? Not even a little…?
New year; new grants list…and as has happened several times before, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) has claimed to have undergone a major reform overhaul. CCHD Reform Started Right Here The first CCHD reform was provoked by a 1997 Wanderer Forum Foundation analysis and commentary of the Campaign that demonstrated the CHD was spending…
Our Lady of the Rosary, the Indispensable Prayer
How many times have you spent time with someone and suddenly realized that what seemed to be a few moments was in fact hours? The time speaking was just too delightful and the surprise when looking at a clock or watch attests that there, for that moment you’ve even escaped time — transcended it. I have debated…
I got a guy in Heaven: Feast of the Guardian Angels
It just seems to be human nature that we all want a connection to power. We want someone “on the inside” who can whisper in the ear of the boss and get things done for us. Sometimes, we just need a guy that can talk to the boss and things get done. Growing up there…
Manipulating the Religious Landscape
Not everyone is happy about a recent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life study that finds a growing number Americans want religion to play a role in U.S. politics.i One syndicated columnist rather hysterically likened the trend to the Taliban’s stoning of women for failure to wear “proper” head covering. “What in the world…
On the Feast of the Archangels Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel
A quick catechism on the existence and purpose of angels, as well as how the archangels fit into the order God created.
