Who is the refugee? Who do I recognize myself to be when confronted with the refugee? How does the politicization of refugees hurt and help them? What responsibility do faith communities have to respond to this crisis? What concretely can we do to respond? These are a few of the burning questions tackled earlier this… Read More Hope and Wisdom Prevail at Princeton Conference on Forced Migration
Republican Congressman John Shimkus expressed opposition yesterday to the mandate in the Affordable Care Act that healthcare plans must cover prenatal care. He argued that men should not have to contribute to the healthcare of pregnant women and their unborn children. Instead, he expressed his support for Americans choosing health insurance plans where coverage is… Read More Republicans Shouldn’t Take Prenatal Care Guarantees from Pregnant Women
“Rend your hearts, not your garments!” These are the challenging words of the prophet Joel that greeted Christians in churches around the world as they marked the beginning of Lent with the celebration of Ash Wednesday. Lent—too domesticated over time—is a radical ancient invitation to reject the globalization of superficiality that too often sullies our… Read More Rend Your Hearts, Not Your Garments
At the beginning of each semester, I introduce my students to modern Catholic social teaching by emphasizing its dialogue with a changing world. We often start with Rerum Novarum, which was a moral reflection and response to a particular historical context in the wake of the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of new working conditions.… Read More See, Judge, Act: Racism, Structural Sin, and Infant Mortality
My wife and I are one month away from being homeless…at least we thought we might be until yesterday. We are currently in the process of buying a house, and everything was moving along smoothly until the inspector discovered an abandoned oil tank under the driveway. If it turned out that the tank had leaks,… Read More We Are All Refugees…Some of Us Just Don’t Know It
President Donald Trump recently announced that refugees from seven predominantly Muslim countries would be denied entry into the United States. As a white, American-born school teacher in a Midwest Catholic school, I didn’t anticipate that this would change my day-to-day life very much. Then a student’s prayer stopped me in my tracks. In my theology… Read More Burritos, Microwaves, and Walls—Lessons in Adulting from High Schoolers
As a certain group of right-wing American Catholics continues to promote free market fundamentalism—sometimes very amiably with rhetorical commitments to a (diminished) social safety net and maybe even with a nod to an increase in the earned income tax credit—Pope Francis has once again affirmed the Church’s fundamental opposition to this ideology (however cleverly marketed)… Read More Pope Francis Challenges Profit-Obsessed Capitalism and Our Complacency
Millennial 