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Showing posts from June, 2018

Here’s My Desert Island Reading List — What’s Yours?

A student once asked me what heaven was like and I replied that I hoped it was a giant library with one more book than I could read in an eternity. So articles like this one always appeal to me. But it does bring to mind the question: What books would you want to have around you if you were marooned on a desert island? Here’s My Desert Island Reading List — What’s Yours?

Contemplating suicide? Watch this video first.

Catholic priest suspended for rapping in church

Hard not to be of two minds with this story. On the one hand, the sermon (or more properly, homily) has a form and protocol that is expressed through means proper to itself, meaning that rapping is not a faithful example of what's expected of it in the rubrics governing the Eucharist. Such innovation, it taken at all, must first be approved by proper Church authority; in this case, the local bishop. This clearly wasn't done and as a result, a sanction has been imposed suspending this priests' faculty to preach. On the other hand....  There is a point to be made concerning the contemporary lingua franca of youth today who, to this point in their lives, have never had the argument of the faith presented to them in a form will listen to. Rap might just be the right tool to use today in the cause of the New Evangelization. The form and cadence of rap shares' much in common with other art forms that comprise the zeitgeist of today's culture, forms such as modern slam p

Francis Says Intercommunion Policy Should Be Decided by Diocesan Bishops

Dear Pope Francis: Please make up your mind. One week you approve a declaration from CDF stating that intercommunion is not permitted, then you get on a plane and contradict that teaching. You are confusing we parish priests. Respectfully, A simple country pastor. Francis Says Intercommunion Policy Should Be Decided by Diocesan Bishops

Wish dad Tom describes how a wish affects the entire family

Parishioners of St. Alphonsus Parish in Chapeau (one of the three parishes I serve as pastor), this family has lived under the cloud of their daughter Aspyn's cancer diagnosis for more than nine months. During that entire time, they have lived in Ottawa at Ronald McDonald House to stay at her side. Tom, Aspyn's father explains in this short video the gift that the Children's Wish List brings to children like her. Please take a moment to watch it, and if the Spirit so moves you as it did me, why not make a donation to this wonderful cause. Children like Aspyn the world over deserve it.

The internet is a gift from God and a responsibility: A video from Pope Francis