 Ten thousand difficulties may not make one doubt, if Newman is right. In that case, what I had last week was a difficulty, but a tricky one. It happened during daily Mass — a habit I can’t manage to acquire, partly because I find the liturgy so moving that it is enormously draining, and … Read more
I am such a Neanderthal.  Case in point: One recent day, I was furiously scrubbing the bathtub when my husband Dan peeked into the bathroom doorway.  “Hey, as long as you’re doing that,” he said, “The toilet in there is looking . . . um . . . really, really gross.”  Yes, … Read more
Father’s Day is almost upon us, and this time I really don’t want to blow it. Greg is a wonderful dad to our seven children. There has to be some present that expresses how much I appreciate him. Top gifts this year are the same as every other year: golf bags, fishing gear, and leather … Read more
I really should stop reading magazines. That might be an odd thing for a magazine editor to say, but it’s true that certain kinds of periodicals are bad for my self esteem. Take that popular homemaking magazine, for example. What’s it called? “Better Homes Than Yours,” I think. I browse through its slick pages, squint … Read more
Deal Hudson spoke with fundraising guru Chuck Piola about what Catholic non-profit organizations can do to survive the current economic crisis. Chuck Piola has been called “The King of Cold Calls” by Inc.Magazine. In 1986, he and his business partner formed NCO Financial Systems. Over twelve years, NCO grew from sixty clients to 80,000; $70,000 … Read more
Frank J. Hanna III has become one of the leading Catholic philanthropists in the nation. His Solidarity Foundation recently obtained the oldest extant copy of portions of the Gospels of Luke and John and presented them to Pope Benedict XVI for the Vatican Library. A merchant banker in Atlanta, Hanna is the CEO of HBR … Read more
As angry as many people were about the bailout of Wall Street, something else makes people just about as angry: falling stock prices. It is probably for this reason that Washington decided to take the risk and push one of the more outrageously extravagant spending programs in the history of the world. The benefits of … Read more
There is much to celebrate in the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch; not the fall of these companies in particular, but what the fall represents. It shows the impossibility of holding onto wealth and power in a free society that is always in flux. And this is as it should be. I’ll explain … Read more
I only saw her for a moment. I was leaving the grocery store one recent afternoon as a small, white-haired lady was heading in. I steered my loaded cart past her on the sidewalk, our eyes met, and we nodded politely at one another. As we did, I caught a glimpse of something that she … Read more
See if you can spot anything wrong with the following claim, a version of which seems to appear in a book, magazine, or newspaper every few weeks for as long as I’ve been reading public commentary on economic matters: The dominant idea guiding economic policy in the United States and much of the globe has … Read more