Her hands were impossibly clean. Her habit smelled of sunshine. Sr. Cyrena Harkins, RSM was the principal of St. Richard’s School and the sculptor of my early Catholic formation. When our baby brother was badly burned, the sisters at St. Dominic’s hospital nursed him back to health. Later, in another state, the Dominican Sisters of … Read more
In a news story that received little media attention last year, LifesiteNews.com and Breitbart, reported that the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation awarded the National Catholic Reporter a $2.3 million grant to provide positive publicity for the work that is being done by Catholic women religious. It was a noble goal that emerged from Conrad Hilton’s … Read more
Like recalcitrant teenagers, taunting their teachers with their latest refusal to submit to authority, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious—an organization that represents more than 80 percent of the more than 50,000 Catholic women religious in the United States—has finally been publicly rebuked by the Vatican. After several decades of trying to persuade the intractable … Read more
Burying the dead is a work of mercy. So, too, is voting for them, according to Sister Marguerite Kloos. Or at least that’s what she thought last year until Ohio investigators nabbed her for an act of voter fraud. This week she plead guilty to the charge of voting twice, acknowledging that she forged the … Read more
The decision of Pope Benedict XVI to renounce the Petrine ministry has understandably brought about a plethora of public reactions, not all of them favorable, and including not a few that resemble the familiar animadversions quite regularly made today against the Catholic Church and the Catholic faith. Although in this case applied to Pope Benedict … Read more
While it is true that nobody is in this life utterly beyond the reach of the Hound of Heaven, the Epistle to the Hebrews warns about the danger to those who have been fully incorporated into Christ and then reject him. “It is impossible,” the inspired writer tells us, mincing no words in the fashion … Read more
There was a great deal wrong with the world in 1905, so much so that G. K. Chesterton felt compelled to write a collection of essays titled aptly enough What’s Wrong With the World? Fans of Chesterton who have the good fortune to peruse this volume will likely experience repeated bouts of déjà vu as … Read more