Columnists and contributors

Father Robert M. O’Grady
A happy surprise

Posted: 3/5/2010

I gathered my reading material -- a book, a few documents that I had not yet, but wanted to read, and headed over to the church at 6:15 p.m. Vested for confessions, I went to the confessional, reading material in hand and closed the door behind me...

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk
Facing death in solidarity and hope

Posted: 3/5/2010

When I make presentations on end-of-life decision making, I sometimes have audience members approach me afterwards with comments like, “You know, Father, when my mom died 6 years ago, and I look back on it, I’m not sure my brothers and I made the right decisions about her care.” Remarks like these serve to remind us how the circumstances surrounding death are important not only for the person who passes on but also for those who remain behind.

Michael Pakaluk
A second spring for Catholic education

Posted: 3/5/2010

Thousands of saints die every year, but only a handful among this “cloud of witnesses” will be raised to the altars. This we remind ourselves of every All Saints Day. Every saint could be canonized, but very few saints are.

Jaymie Stuart Wolfe
Meeting Maria

Posted: 3/5/2010

I’ve been at St. Maria Goretti in Lynnfield for almost six years. Whenever I have to tell someone where I work, invariably they ask how to spell “Goretti.” Now I just say, “One R and two T’s.” I imagine that people from St. Athanasius and Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha have it even worse.

Clark Booth
Winter Olympics adieux

Posted: 3/5/2010

In the requisite song and dance awash in cheers and tears, the Winter Olympics end leaving behind more questions than answers. Chief of which is: “Are these glorious games any longer worth it?”

George Weigel
Robert Charles Susil, 1974-2010

Posted: 2/26/2010

Four days after my son-in-law, Rob Susil, re-entered Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he would die of an aggressive sarcoma on Feb. 5, the Church marked the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord and read the Gospel of Simeon’s prophecy to Mary--that a “sword will pierce through your own soul” (Lk 2:35). That image of a sword, often described as a sword of sorrow, is the first of the traditional “seven dolors” of Our Lady of Sorrows, commemorated throughout the Church on Sept. 15, the day after the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross. Yet if Our Lady is the first of disciples and the model of Christian discipleship, then the sword of sorrow must pass through each disciple’s life, too, configuring us more closely to the Son from whose pierced side flowed blood, water and the Church.

Nation
Chaput: Kennedy’s 1960 speech damaged believers’ role in public life
By Nancy Frazier O'Brien

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Although John F. Kennedy's famous speech in Houston nearly 50 years ago could be seen as "a passionate appeal for tolerance," the candidate's remarks about how his Catholicism would affect his presidency "profoundly undermined the place ... of all religious believers in America's public life," said Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver.
Posted: 3/9/2010


World
Haitian students lend a hand in earthquake recovery efforts
By Tom Tracy Catholic News Service

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CNS) -- Colonb Mitsuka was on a playground at Louverture Cleary School when the massive magnitude 7 earthquake shook Haiti Jan. 12, causing a cinder block to fall on her, significantly injuring her face.
Posted: 3/9/2010


World
100 traditionalist Anglican parishes seek to join Catholic Church
By Catholic News Service

ORLANDO, Fla. (CNS) -- About 100 traditionalist Anglican parishes in the United States have decided to join the Catholic Church as a group.
Posted: 3/9/2010


World
Pope’s brother apologizes to abuse victims at his former school
By Jonathan Luxmoore

WARSAW, Poland (CNS) -- The brother of Pope Benedict XVI apologized to child victims of sexual abuse at his former school even though he said he was unaware of the alleged incidents.
Posted: 3/9/2010


Nation
Different laws on same-sex marriage bring different church responses
By Nancy Frazier O'Brien

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- When San Francisco passed an ordinance more than 13 years ago requiring agencies that contract with the city to provide spousal benefits to employees' domestic partners, then-Archbishop William J. Levada asked for a religious exemption, arguing that it imposed "an unconstitutional condition" on religiously affiliated organizations like Catholic Charities.
Posted: 3/8/2010