The Narthex

Our local senior center holds a well-attended bingo game once a week. “B-10,” a moderator announces by microphone, and a hundred heads nod to scan their cards. It’s a good money maker for city services while providing a needed social event. Our local parish does the same to provide funding…

It’s been over 50 years since I taught physics and math ― not the most popular subjects, compared to hands-on training in auto mechanics at a vocational trade school in Beacon Hill. My young students were a rambunctious lot, shooting spit balls and flying paper planes when I entered to…

It was 1953 when I found myself at 11 years old tuning into Bishop Fulton J. Sheen’s weekly Tuesday night commentaries on our black and white television. I don’t know how I got motivated to watch him every week, because my parents weren’t into Catholicism. I was raised a Catholic,…

Cardinal Marx has called for "new thinking" on sexual issues, including celibacy. His liberal perspective reflects pressure to end mandatory priestly celibacy, a contested issue since sexual freedom has become a core principle of modern German culture. Catholics there have become skeptical of celibacy. Last November, the lay Central Committee…

My brother and his wife, a cousin and I ate at the Yellow Deli in Vista, California, on Monday evening, just before their departure back to New Hampshire. We had spent the day touring the restored Mission San Luis Rey and the nearby Prince of Peace Abbey. After eating, we…

One would think the hubris of Pope Francis knows no bounds, as he proposes we reinterpret and reword The Lord's Prayer. I suppose he thinks we have the wrong idea that God is purposely testing our worthiness. So? Maybe God is allowing all his children to be tempted. Ponder while…

When I was a kid, coffee was served only to adults at our dinner table. Smoking was definitely a no-no, so we had to leave the dining room if a guest lit up a cigar. Even profanity was prohibited in our presence. The reason, of course, was that these would…

The archetypical image of the forbidden fruit in Genesis is the apple. Neither a Delicious nor a Gala nor a Fuji―just a plain apple. East Indians see the forbidden fruit as a banana. What actually hangs from The Tree of Life is the temptation to partake of delicious pleasure without…

Pope Francis is humanely concerned with over a dozen man-made problems that even school kids would wonder why the world doesn’t do something about: plastics littering the oceans, deadly drug gangs in Mexico, insane wars sparked by the pride of men, murderous Christian persecutions in Muslim nations, materialistic culture and…

In a low-rent Beacon Hill tenement where I once lived, I visited almost daily a disabled pensioner who was a former horse jockey, recently suffering from blackouts. He had had a metal plate embedded in his skull after a racing tumble, and it caused him unpredictable fainting spells. His merely…

Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, met with Mahatma Gandhi to gain his support for her promotion of birth control devices versus using self-control of sexual desire. She was sorely disappointed, as he predicted rampant licentiousness would result from widespread use of such devices. In 1934, an Indian…

San Francisco was recently dubbed the "Poop Capital of America" due to the high number of poop complaints reported in 2017. Local channel KRON reports that while dogs play a part, at issue is the number of homeless people defecating in streets and parks. Could "privy demons" be a reason why down-and-outers…

The Roman Empire depended entirely on its slave culture. Back then, Spartacus, a former Thracian soldier who had deserted, was captured and enslaved. After being forced to perform as a gladiator, he rebelled. He was eventually followed by 70,000 slaves to the mountain caves near Vesuvius. The Empire, threatened after…

During the persecution of Catholics in Elizabethan England, Jesuit priests pretending to be family relatives or tutors hid in specially constructed ‘priest holes’ to avoid royal prosecutors. Surprise inspections and raids of family homes were not uncommon and if a priest was found, he would face torture and execution. Today,…

"When we see news clips of a shark swimming near a beach, it scares us into not going near that beach," says Liz Weinandy, a registered dietitian at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center. But "what we should be scared of is double cheeseburgers, french fries and large amounts of…