Why Do People Still Go to Church?
A May 2015 survey by the Pew Research Center shows that 23 percent of Americans identified as “religiously unaffiliated,” up from 16.1 percent seven years earlier. And a third of ...
Your Attention, Please
If it’s hard to get people’s attention about God and religion, it may be even harder to get them to read about protecting the environment. And protection is needed more ...
Messing with Political Agendas
Pope Francis’ recent document on the environment, “On the Care of Our Common Home,” elicited interesting reactions from many American politicians, including some announced and presumed presidential candidates of his ...
Do We Really Need a God like Us?
When I worked as a priest in Bolivia, I was told that the Aymara-speaking people in my parish would do anything short of murder and mayhem to get their babies ...
Getting Home
I recently attended a Mass at Old St. Patrick’s Church in Chicago’s West Loop where the new archbishop, Blase Cupich, happened to be visiting and conducting the liturgy. As usual ...
Finding Your Calm
For many of us in the western world, a glut of obstacles impedes the search for God. In my view, they include indulgent prosperity, religious illiteracy, damaging sex, secularism and “busyness.” ...