Michael Jordan Laskey writes: My 4-year-old son—rascally, chaotic—is better behaved at church than he is anywhere else…. We have to be sitting as close to the choir as humanly possible. And Mr. John, the bald, bespectacled Boomer who plays the drum set at this Mass, can’t be out sick or on vacation. If all these… Read More How I Learned the True Meaning of ‘Good’ Liturgical Music

via the Berkley Center: October 21-22, 2024 | This conference will commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), with a special focus on the commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the Patrick F. Healy Conference on “Freedom and Man.” Held at Georgetown University on December 2, 1964, the conference on… Read More Revisiting “Freedom and Man”

via Jesuits Magazine: In 2023, and earlier this year, Fr. Patrick “Paddy” Gilger, SJ, presented a lecture on loneliness in two venues—first at St. Paul’s College in Winnipeg, Canada, and then as part of an Ignatian Volunteer Corps event at Saint Ignatius College Prep in Chicago. Through anecdotes, research findings and statistics, Fr. Gilger examines… Read More Antidotes to Loneliness

Christopher Hale writes: Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign displayed a noticeable aversion to engaging with Catholic voters. Unlike Biden, Harris avoided any sustained outreach to religious communities, including Catholics, who comprise nearly a quarter of the U.S. electorate. Her campaign did not run targeted ads aimed at Catholic voters, nor did it make a concerted effort… Read More Why Kamala Harris Lost

Millennial of the Year Pete Davis writes: If I could make everyone at Democratic National Committee headquarters read one book, it would be Theda Skocpol’s Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life, published in 2003. In the early 20th century, according to Skocpol, civic life was mostly based in mass-membership organizations—religious congregations,… Read More The Democratic Party Needs to Transform Itself

In an interview with Crux, Cardinal Wilton Gregory states: No political party and certainly no individual candidate that I’ve experienced embraces, the full range of Catholic social, moral teaching. We just don’t have that. And I don’t know if we’ve ever had that. The issues that we face are unique to our times. Obviously, the… Read More Cardinal Gregory: Being Pro-Life Extends Beyond Abortion

via the Georgetown Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life: As the United States approaches the presidential election in November, what are the responsibilities of faithful citizens and voters, especially young adults? Does our faith compel us to vote for a particular candidate? What does it mean to have a “well-formed conscience”? What issues,… Read More Faith, Discernment, Democracy, and the 2024 Election