The Narthex

We have all known people, or have read of people, who have adopted children or served as foster parents, often as foster parents of large numbers of children. Have you heard the story of Catholic Ruthanne “Dolly” Donahue? She was a mother of three in the 1970s when a hungry…

It's been a long while since I entered the lottery at my local 76 gas station convenience store. The Mega Millions prize of nearly a billion dollars was too tempting, so I headed out to buy a Quick Pick. A pay-to-play $2 speculation raises my chance of winning a spectacular…

When I first saw news about the Occupy Wall Street movement in Zuccotti Park in Manhattan ten years ago, my reaction was a common one: “Get a job, you hippies.” A raucous mob of hooligans destroying public property and vandalizing police cars remained my abiding impression for several years. I’m…

The preacher of the Pontifical Household, Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa, said this in his fourth Lenten homily (2016), on the subject of “Marriage and Family” and the holiness of married couples/parents:

In the Christian community, consecrated people and married people are able to “edify one another.” Spouses are…

Vatican Council II counsels us to search out “the signs of the times.” The Latin, “signa perscrutandi” suggests the keen scrutiny this involves. One sign of our calamitous times is the invasion of the slogans of the day. What’s the difference between a sign and a slogan? A sign points,…

Over the past few years, and especially during 2020 as America burned to the cheers of the woke, we have often heard the words “civil war” pronounced by pundits and scholars. America was on the verge of a civil war, we were told. As the crowds in the streets swelled…

A COVID vaccine soon will be available to me, as I’m nearly 79. My married brother and I recently discussed this. He is 77, has grandkids, and must business travel on commercial airplanes, so he would have to get the shot. I live like a hermit, and the only traveling…

My parents had seven children. They were married for 61 years, until my mother’s death. I often think about what I say was “their great love.” She would often tell us children that she loved “every hair on your father’s head.” And he would cry in front of me when…

On average nearly 150,000 people die throughout the world every single day, from all causes, amounting to a total of more than 55 million each year. Those totals should be constantly in our minds as a sort of yardstick or backdrop to our consideration of the numbers reported slain by…

Let's add a few more descriptions of “bystanders” who, when met with a life-and-death situation, attempted a rescue, often fatal for themselves. On May 6, 2016, Catholic Malcolm “Mike” Winffel was walking through a shopping mall’s parking lot with a co-worker, Carl Unger, on their way to lunch “when they…

Charlie Camosy, a stalwart of the American Solidarity Party, argues that we should condemn the Capitol violence of “1-6” without using words like "sacred" and "temple" and "desecration." In his view, they are “not appropriate words for a place which (while very significant) is not sacred, not a temple, and…

I recently saw evergreen trees piled high behind the Senior Center. A trash worker forgot to unlock the trash trailer bins. I stood beside the trees, breathing in the refreshing forest fragrance that conjured up happy Christmases past. It pulled me back to my childhood and the lighted tree in…

Everyday people who were bystanders to emergency have demonstrated the ultimate in self-sacrifice. In this kind of activity, some live, some die. Many people during the Holocaust saved strangers. The State of Israel has recognized over 27,000 Gentiles who did so and are deemed “Righteous Among the Nations” at Yad…

I previously cited individuals who tended patients with incurable, communicable diseases: Joseph Dutton who worked with St. Damien of Molokai, Dr. and Mrs. Harry Blaber, and Dr. Martin Salia who died in 2014. Others who risk death for the sake of another include fire and police personnel. On March 24,…

I visited her right after church on Christmas Sunday. It was still morning when I knocked on her door for my weekly visit. Della ushered me in. She had the tea cups already set out, alongside a plate of her favorite pastry. She indicated I should sit, as she reached…