Monday, November 18, 2019099People today are deeply affected by the challenges of unity and diversity, especially the younger generations. These challenges are a chance for the Gospel to show its power.
For some people, our society’s affirmation of diversity must be so uncompromising that truth and unity, and therefore community, become acceptable losses. I...
Saturday, October 19, 2019073St. John Henry Cardinal Newman is an ecumenical saint: that is, he is a saint who in a sense belongs to all Christians, inasmuch as his eventual conversion to Catholicism was preceded by other conversions to other Christian traditions, all of which can be seen as representing a progressively deeper discovery of the Gospel. Before...
Saturday, September 21, 20190192I was pleasantly surprised earlier this summer when I saw confirmed in the prestigious journal Scientific American (May 2019) something I had often heard from some Catholics: namely, the hormonal contraceptives that our society offers millions of women have a rather dubious origin and an even more questionable future.
Friday, September 6, 2019033Recently, I accompanied some really awesome students to John Bunker Sands Wetlands Center, which is a beautiful water treatment facility and nature preserve southeast of Dallas. We listened to interesting presentations from the naturalists who care for the site, and then we tested the water quality. One of the tests was for turbidity, or...
Thursday, August 22, 2019046By Father John Bayer
Special to The Texas Catholic
One of the more disappointing things I read in the news recently was that Amazon decided, in response to a petition from LGBTQ activists, to stop selling books by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, a Catholic psychologist who promoted “reparative therapy” for those trying to reshape homosexual...
Friday, June 14, 2019021In a culture so saturated with sexuality as our own, among the most provocative lines of the Gospel is surely the following: some “have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (19:12).
Tuesday, May 14, 2019015Recently, we read a gospel passage that can make people cringe: the story of “doubting”Thomas (cf. Jn 20:19-31). This passage is, sadly, often interpreted as though it were contrasting reason, on the one hand, with faith (or gullibility), on the other. For example, one very influential atheist, Richard Dawkins, refers to the story of...
Thursday, April 11, 20190178What does it mean to forgive? Is forgiveness essentially a negative and cancelling force, that is, something that ignores an injury? Or is it a positive and creative force, that is, something that adds to life? I think it’s probably both, but my sense is that we typically think only of the negative side. For example, it is popular to...
How many words, songs and rhymes are stored in your memory? If I say, “Take me out to the…” or “Oops I…” you could probably finish the two lines (“Take me out to the ballgame” and “Oops I did it again”). We have an immense world of words filling our interior lives, and many of them we made little effort to memorize....
Thursday, February 14, 2019086A few weeks ago, Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Farmers Branch hosted “Treasures of the Church,” a traveling exhibition of sacred relics from the Vatican. By all appearances, it was a wonderful event.
