poor
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Did you know that I wrote a book? Are you looking for a book of short daily reflections that you can read this Advent season? Did you plan to buy my book, but never got around to it? Have you bought my book, loved it, and want to share it with others? If any of
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How are we living the dream? Catholics celebrate the Feast of the Dedication of St. John Lateran on November 9th every year, and the Scripture passages for that day are an interesting mix: Jesus cleanses the Temple in the Gospel (John 2), Ezekiel dreams about life-giving water flowing from the Temple in Ezekiel 47, and
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The Bible readings for the Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time (October 26, 2025) seems tailor-made for Pope Leo XIV’s newly released apostolic exhortation, Dilexi te. The first reading from Sirach dwells on God hearing the cry of the oppressed, the wail of the orphan and widow, the prayer of the lowly.* The Psalm response is
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If you are a Catholic nerd deeply engaged Catholic, this is probably not your post. But if you saw some quotes from Pope Leo about poverty (that weren’t fake), and you were just curious enough to learn some rudimentary things about this document that the quotes came from, I am here for you. Let’s do
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You first. Starting with yesterday’s Gospel, the readings for daily mass have some challenging things to say about how we Christians ought to act. Yesterday, we heard: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” And: “Give to everyone who asks of
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Two posts tonight. This one a follow up on Friday’s post about Syrian refugees. I noticed in the local paper that a letter to the editor called Pope Francis to task for being “naive”, first for his guidance to European parishes to accept refugees (in light of the trend among Muslim immigrants to European countries
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You probably wouldn’t think that the answer to the challenge of Pope Francis’ encyclical would be found in Bhutan. (In part because, you, like me, couldn’t find Bhutan without Google.) One of the reflections I’ve had on reading Laudato Si’ is that maybe our problem as a society is that we focus on the wrong stuff.
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I haven’t seen a thoughtful conservative response to Laudato Si’. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been any; in fact, I’d welcome the chance to read any you’ve seen. Here’s one worth trying on, though. Pope Francis focuses heavily, and rightly, on the plight of the poor; this isn’t new — it’s in keeping with the history
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If anyone’s interested, I can outline the argument that I think American economic conservatives can and perhaps should make about Laudato Si’ and Pope Francis’ social teaching in general. (I have some thoughts about the argument religious conservatives could have made about marriage equality, too, believe it or not.) But until someone asks, here is
Reading Francis 