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Wars have always caused needless suffering, destruction and death.

Although it is ordinary time in the church year, I think it often feels like Good Friday these days. Don’t you?     

As I write, it is July 4, Independence Day in the United States.

In the Gospel of Matthew, there is a scene where the Pharisees and Sadducees, in their desire to test Jesus, ask him to show them a sign.

Last year I was knocked to the ground and pinned down by an assailant who held his hand over my mouth.

Celebrating the Eucharist at St. Pope John Paul II’s tomb in St. Peter’s Basilica on the 100th anniversary of the saint’s birth (May 18)...

While to a certain degree returning to “business as usual” will not likely happen, that does not mean the vast majority of those who hold most of the world’s wealth and power will not use every advantage at their deposal...

As the dreadful coronavirus pandemic clearly illustrates: Life is fragile.

Even now, as the coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to attack humanity, so many human beings continue to fight each other.

The coronavirus is not a punishment from God.

“The worst is, yes, ahead of us,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, U.S. director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Quite some years ago, I was working as director of Christian formation at a Catholic high school, I remember that on Ash Wednesday...

​​​​​​​On Jan. 23, 2020 the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Science and Security Board, together with 13 Nobel Laureate consultants, moved

“Two wrongs don’t make a right.” Just think how much better each one of us and the world would be, if we held fast to this morally correct common sense proverb. But unfortunately, common sense and morality are often not considered when we feel we have been wronged.

This new year, this new decade, begins much like the past year, the past decade: wars between countries, wars within countries, nations around the globe preparing for future wars and astronomical military budgets cemented in place to ensure all this unholy madness continues. As an elixir to this seemingly hopeless trap the world finds itself in, Pope Francis offers us a hopeful path forward away from the blood and tears of war. In his Jan. 1, 2020 World Day of Peace message “Peace as a Journey of Hope: Dialogue, Reconciliation and Ecological Conversion,” the Holy Father writes “Hope is thus the virtue that inspires us and keeps us moving forward, even when obstacles seem insurmountable.”

Regardless of whether your mother is on this, or the other side of eternity, you can still give her the most wonderful gift of all: your love.

Two years ago, speaking before a Vatican sponsored international symposium titled “Prospects for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons and for Integral Disarmament,” Pope Francis said we cannot fail to be “genuinely concerned by the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental effects of any employment of nuclear devices.

When we pray Christianity’s most important single prayer – The Our Father – do we really attempt to understand and meditate upon the challenge of its words – especially “thy kingdom come”?

You are called by God to be a saint! And that all important calling from the Lord is not just to be seriously considered on All Saints Day – but every day! It is no coincidence that the Catholic Church proclaims the Gospel passage of the Beatitudes on the Solemnity of All Saints. For in this most wonderful teaching from the Son of God, we are shown the way to holiness, to blessedness, to joyfulness.

Just imagine for a moment that you have no home. What will you do for meals today? Where will you shower? Where will you sleep? If you have children, how will you provide for them? And how will you cope with being homeless tomorrow, next week, next month?