Sr. Helen Prejean writes: The one time I was allowed inside a death chamber was as the State of Virginia took Joseph O’Dell’s life in 1997. That night, I stood close to the gurney, looking into Joe’s face, with my hand firmly on his shoulder as I prayed. In my prayer I asked God to… Read More Don’t Deny Those Being Executed Prayer and Human Touch

In the NY Times, millennial Catholic journalist Michael O’Loughlin writes: As a reporter who covers the church, I had started interviewing Catholics who worked and fought during the height of the H.I.V. crisis in the United States, roughly 1982 to 1996. People like Ms. Baltosiewich persisted amid frequent hostility from church leaders toward gay people… Read More Pope Writes Letter to Michael O’Loughlin, Author of New Book on Catholics and the AIDS Epidemic

Here are some highlights from John Gehring’s Commonweal interview with Bishop John Stowe of Lexington: I do believe that climate issues are not getting enough attention among the Church’s leadership. Specifically, I think we bishops need to help people connect their personal and communal faith to the importance of reverence for creation and the necessary… Read More Bishop Stowe: Greater Urgency Needed on Climate Issues and Racism

via the BBC: peaking from the Vatican for BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day, the Pope talked of crises including the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change and economic difficulties, and urged the world to respond to them with vision and radical decisions, so as not to “waste opportunities” that the current challenges present. “We can… Read More Pope Urges ‘Radical’ Climate Response

Stephanie H. Murray writes: There is a cultural weight dangling from the yoke of modern American parenthood — one that is probably beyond the government to alleviate. The very same logic of self-sufficiency that rationalizes our anemic family policies — “Don’t have kids if you can’t afford them” — underpins our social expectations for children,… Read More American Culture vs. Parenting