Catholic Community Speaks | AmericanCatholic.org

Having an Impact

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 08:00:00 EST

New media are not just instruments for communicating. They are also having a huge impact on culture, changing the way people interact and even think.

So said Pope Benedict XVI, during a recent meeting with members of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

The challenge for the church, he said, is finding a way to transmit ...

Help Wanted

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST

Rising unemployment and the stalled creation of new jobs are dampening morale on Main Street and threatening the nation’s economic recovery. More than 15 million Americans who want to work are now out of a job, nearly one in 10. According to the Department of Labor, the number of job seekers is six times the ...

Principles, Not Prizes

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST

Historians may look back on this month as the time when the high-flying expectations that many have placed on President Barack Obama hit the ground domestically while at the same time soaring into the stratosphere overseas.

Obama's own supporters have become increasingly impatient with what they see as a lack of progress on his agenda, and ...

We Should Celebrate Darwin

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST

Many scientists since Darwin's time have realized that scientific searching can result in the awesome realization ...

We Need to Name More Married Saints

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST

The Church recognizes saints and blesseds not to give them bragging rights in heaven but to offer us models of holiness for our earthly pilgrimage. One of the Sacramentary's opening prayers for the Feast of All Saints begins, "God our Father, source of all holiness, the work of your hands is manifest in your saints, the beauty of your ...

Dorothy’s Gift

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST

This isn’t going to work! I kept telling myself. I was pacing in front of the set of a video we were about to shoot, and I had worked myself into a panic.

The Price of Death

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST

Public support for capital punishment in the United States has declined in recent years for several reasons, one of which is botched executions. The most recent occurrence was in September in an Ohio prison, where Romell Broom was to be put to death by lethal injection.

"For I Was Ill and You Cared for Me"

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:00:00 EST

‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’

Health Care: What's a Catholic to Do?

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:00:00 EST

The health-care reform debate has been going on in our country for decades. Post-Depression Roosevelt and Truman tried it, as did Nixon and, more recently, Clinton. Rising health-care costs made health-care reform a major campaign issue last November.

No Waiting Room

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:00:00 EST

They say the best place to keep an appointment with the devil is at a crossroads. We are again drawing near another political crossroads on health care. If we cannot move past our own diabolical short-sightedness and partisan tendencies this time, we will miss a historic opportunity to put our health care system on a ...

Murder Is Not Pro-life

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:00:00 EST

On the morning of May 31, 2009, in the lobby of a Wichita Lutheran church, a gunman quietly approached an usher as he distributed bulletins to his fellow parishioners. The gunman raised his weapon to the 67-year-old man’s head and fired at point-blank range. Soon after the suspect fled, the usher died.

Obstacles to Reform

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:00:00 EST

The biggest obstacles to health care reform have little to do with legislation currently being considered by Congress. Obstacles like rising unemployment, a growing number of home foreclosures and the continuing economic instability are currently being magnified by an underlying public fear about the future. That fear is manifest in the ...

The Lord's Prayer and the Lockerbie Controversy

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 08:00:00 EST

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

The Stakeholder Society

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:00:00 EST

AMERICA MAGAZINE—Gratuity is a genteel term for a tip for services rendered by a waiter, taxi driver or bellhop. Of course, it also refers fundamentally to any gracious act that is not strictly expected. In times past, it referred to the beneficence of kings. In its most exalted sense, it denotes the transcendent goodness of ...

Husband Faces Unemployment

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 08:00:00 EST

CATHOLIC DIGEST—Rick’s job had been keeping him awake nights with worry. Three times in the past 12 months his company had downsized. Each time it happened, he said goodbye to friends in his own department, and each time he felt increasingly anxious. Now he was the only one of his team left.

Servant-Leaders Needed

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:00:00 EST

Last March, Pope Benedict XVI announced a worldwide Year for Priests from June 19, 2009 (feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus) to August 4, 2010 (feast of St. John Vianney).

Goodbye Retirement!

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:00:00 EST

Chickens. The woman was probably thinking about chickens as she walked along Chicago’s South Side on that warm spring day. She was the principal of a private school in the city, and the thought of chickens had put her into the best mood she’d been in for some time.

Shabby Welcome to Iraqi Refugees

webdev@AmericanCatholic.org (American Catholic) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 08:00:00 EST

As U.S. troops are preparing to return to the United States, millions of Iraqis continue to endure hardship both as displaced persons within Iraq and as refugees in surrounding countries. But even Iraqi refugees in the United States face harsh pitfalls. Since the war’s mass displacements began in February 2006, barely ...

Obama’s meeting with religious press—A foundation to build upon?