Perspective
Peace is the first greeting
On Jan. 18, 1968, St. Paul VI inaugurated the World Day of Peace and designated the first day of every year for this focus. This day is also devoted to […]
Perspective Archive
Perspective
The story of our lives
I’m beginning the new year with a clean office. It seems a good place to start, a practical way to set me up for any other resolutions I make. My […]
Perspective
Why are we surprised the teaching of the Real Presence has become an abstraction?
On the Friday of the 33rd week of Ordinary Time, my wife and I attended Mass at SS. Peter and Paul here in Huntington, Indiana, because our second grader was […]
Perspective
Theotokos
“Theotokos:” A word that to the average American ear might sound like an appetizer on a Greek menu, is actually older than spanakopita itself. This word is an ancient Greek […]
Perspective
The foxes and the henhouse
Probably the biggest bioethics story of 2019 involved Dr. Jankui He — known to his associates as “JK” — a Chinese scientist who employed a new technology called CRISPR/Cas9 to […]
Perspective
Synchrony and culture
Last month I paid a visit to Bar-Ilan University in Israel for a discussion about the role of faith in higher education. Bar-Ilan is distinctive among Israeli universities in its […]
Perspective
A thrill of hope
The arena was perfectly silent. Twenty thousand young people knelt at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis as the Eucharist was exposed in a monstrance on the altar in the center […]
Perspective
Books for Christmas – 2019
Resist the twitterization of thought — give books for Christmas! The following titles will delight, instruct, edify or all of the above: “Churchill: Walking with Destiny” by Andrew Roberts (Viking) […]
Perspective
‘The Crown’ and the primacy of grace
Spoiler alert Like, I daresay, most of the English-speaking world, these past couple of years I’ve been watching episodes of “The Crown,” the beautifully filmed, marvelously written program on the […]
Perspective
Finding reason to hope amid the pessimism
My father-in-law, Joseph, was a wonderful guy. An immigrant who passionately loved America, he was hardworking, honest and thrifty. He had a laborer’s hands but a poet’s mind. Joseph had […]
Perspective
Rudolph to the rescue: the triumph of an under-deer
Robert May was painfully aware of the distance between his dreams and his reality. The 34-year-old Dartmouth graduate had long fantasized about writing the great American novel. Instead, he was […]
Perspective
Christmas is proof that God believes in us
Recently, a friend recounted all of the activities ahead of her to get ready for the Christmas season: shopping, baking, decorating, getting cards out and spending extra hours at the […]