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  Saint Teresa of Calcutta is cited by Pope Leo XIV in his just published apostolic exhortation Dilexit te (“I have loved you”): Foundress of the Missionaries of Charity, she dedicated her life to the dying abandoned on the streets of India. She gathered the rejected, washed... Read More →

  The church witnesses for life simply by being the church. By gathering for worship, hearing the Word of God, celebrating the Sacraments, and observing the Christian Year, the congregation declares that innocent human lives are to be recognized and defended.  Without... Read More →

  Roe v. Wade—and the dishonest decades-long defense of its mandate to kill unborn children—has left a legacy of badly distorted public reasoning. To reach a pro-choice outcome, judges twisted justice; to constrain dissent, legislators silenced opposition; to appeal for... Read More →

   In Catholic (and some Protestant) liturgical calendars, September 29 is the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. In England and Ireland, it marks the beginning of the academic year, “Michaelmas Term,” and the end of the harvest season. The Bible is alive with angels. St.... Read More →

  American society is fractured; discourse that is civil is rarely heard. We are divided Red against Blue and Blue against Red. Our history is reckoned glorious; or it is taken to be an embarrassment. Technology throws gasoline on fires that otherwise might be easily... Read More →

   [This (2009) column is reprinted from Fun Is Not Enough, a collection of Fr. Francis Canavan’s Catholic eye columns edited by Dawn Eden Goldstein and published in 2017.] __________________________________________________________________________ Since man is a social... Read More →

  In a recent address to French Catholic political leaders gathered in Rome for the Holy Year, Pope Leo spoke of the weighty challenges they face in our often hostile world: I am well aware that the openly Christian commitment of a public official is not easy, especially in... Read More →

  I recently made a trip to Tabora, Tanzania, a place most people I know have probably never heard of let alone visited. Certainly, I would not have heard of it but for a connection with the Anglican bishop there, who had repeatedly invited me to visit his diocese. The trip... Read More →

  I have the privilege of composing this reflection while residing in Tanzania. A colleague and I are working on a series of projects for the Archdiocese of Mwanza, which is on the shore of Lake Victoria, in the north-central part of the country. Like many Africans,... Read More →

  This is my second, and last, Pastoral Reflection that centers on a declaration for life. Promise. In 1988, a small group of United Methodist pastors began discussing the possibility of writing a declaration addressed to The United Methodist Church on life and abortion. In... Read More →