“There was once a little man called Niggle, who had a long journey to make. He did not want to go, indeed the whole idea was distasteful to him; but he could not get out of it. He knew he would have to start some time, but he did not hurry with his preparations…” – […]
Marc Chagall’s White Crucifixion, which is reportedly one of Pope Francis’ favorite works of art, unites a crucifix with imagery of one of the greatest abuses against human dignity in recent history: the treatment of European Jews in the 1930s and 1940s. Christ is identified in the painting as Jewish, wearing a prayer shawl on […]
Even before he became Pope John Paul II, work was a major theme in Karol Wojtyla’s life, a theme that weaves through his poetry. Wojtyla wrote poems about quarry workers, factory workers, actors, typists, and others, revealing his personal understanding of the tasks and struggles of modern workers. In a poem called “The Armaments Factory […]
The notion of Six Degrees of Separation suggests that each of us is separated from everybody else on the planet by only six degrees of separation, or even less. In 2016, Facebook researchers found that everybody in the 1.59 billion person world of Facebook was separated from everybody else by only about 3.6 degrees of […]
“When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.” – John Muir What has Christian wisdom to do with environmental thinking? Care of God’s Creation, the environment, […]
Have you ever found yourself in such a state of frenzy to get your work done that you pulled an all-nighter? Have you ever stopped eating, except for pop-tarts while you worked? Have you ever sacrificed time with family or having leisure on Sunday to get closer to feeling caught up? Work deeply affects the […]
“Love for others, and in the first place love for the poor, in whom the Church sees Christ in himself, is made concrete in the promotion of justice.” St. John Paul II The Church sees Christ in the poor. Let this reality sink in for a moment. In describing those who will enter the kingdom […]
In an article published back in 1991, Mary Ann Glendon warned, “A tendency to frame nearly every social controversy in terms of a clash of rights (a woman’s right to her own body vs. a fetus’ right to life) impedes compromise, mutual understanding, and the discovery of common ground.” Glendon wasn’t undermining the importance of […]
Smoking marijuana in one’s room, watching pornography secretly, cheating a tax system… how do these actions affect community? To what extent I am called to participate in community and how a community relates to ethics are topics that fall under one of the seven pillars of Catholic social teaching—the call to family, community, and participation. […]
To engage the culture means to communicate with it in order to communicate to it. To engage the culture we need to understand the principles of thought that allow for fruitful dialogue: We need to be prepared to give a reason for what we believe. How can I engage the culture that lets Charlie Ward […]