Six Political Principles

    This pastoral reflection was outlined on May 31. Ninety years before that day, on May 31, 1934, The Barmen Declaration was adopted by the votes of more than one hundred Protestants—both clergy (pastors and professors) and laity who were assembled at a church in...
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Barbie—Breaking Through

  One is not likely to think of Barbie as a pro-life film. Its premise is that there is a “Barbieland” ruled by women, an excessively pink world of upbeat and positive people who never age, perfect in skin and attitude. It is not a world of sin and hardship, where people age...
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The Lame, the Blind . . . and the Pregnant?

    Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, the pregnant woman and she who is in labor, together; a great company, they shall return here. (Jeremiah 31:8) In considering...
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“Faith alone may see His face”

    This last week in May, either on Thursday or on Sunday, Catholics celebrate Christ’s gift of himself to us in the Holy Eucharist, the sacrament of his Body and Blood. The Feast of Corpus Christi was established in 1264 by Pope Urban IV, who asked St. Thomas Aquinas...
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Why Suffering?

    A couple of years ago, a colleague shared with a few of us that her daughter was suffering from a likely terminal cancer. The child rallied and faltered, and we rode the waves with her family in our prayers. We cooed over photographs of her bald little nine-year-old...
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Pilgrimage of Hope

  Hope, together with faith and charity, makes up the triptych of the “theological virtues” that express the heart of the Christian life (cf. 1 Cor 13:13; 1 Thess 1:3). In their inseparable unity, hope is the virtue that, so to speak, gives inward direction and purpose to...
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“I Have Called You Friends”

    “It is not enough that I succeed; everyone else must fail.” Google attributes this quote to a Mongol conqueror of the 12th and 13th centuries, though how Google would know baffles me: I can’t find one blog or social media post signed Genghis Khan. Seriously, the...
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A PASTOR’S LETTER TO A CHURCH MEMBER WHO IS TEMPTED BY ABORTION

  The following letter involves fictional characters and circumstances. It is written to encourage, that is, to bolster the courage of those tempted by abortion—including their pastors. (PTS)  __________________________ Dear Karin: God’s grace and peace to you and yours. I...
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Burial of a Queen

    God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in...
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“Stay with us”

    The season that extends for forty days from Easter Sunday to the feast of the Ascension celebrates the time when Jesus revealed his resurrection in many ways. The four gospels give us only a selection of our Lord’s appearances—just enough to illustrate their great...
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