“Mary,” Jesus said to her. When she heard him call her name, she responded, “Rabbouni!” Teacher. “Go to my brothers,” he said, delivering a direct commission to announce the “good news.” “I have seen the Lord,” she told the disciples. In our parish in Northern California, lay women began to preach the good news during Read more
In appointing seven women to the Vatican congregation that oversees religious orders July 9, Pope Francis achieved a double win. In one stroke, he has advanced both the role of women in the church and the reform of the Vatican Curia. This is significant because his efforts so far in these areas have been mediocre. Read more
It can be hard to come out as LGBT when you belong to a religion which has strict rules against it. This was the case for Jackie Handy who came out to her strict Catholic parents when she was just 15. The public speaker from Hagley, believed that her family would cast her out for Read more
According to the Gospel, the first person to encounter the risen Christ is the female disciple Mary of Magdala, also known as Mary Magdalene. John recounts the amazing story in the Gospel passage proclaimed at Easter Sunday Mass: “On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the Read more
In her 2004 Pulitzer-Prize winning novel “Gilead,” Marilynne Robinson sketches a portrait of the Rev. John Ames, a small- town pastor in 1950s Iowa who is humble, self-aware, compassionate and devoted to his family and his congregation, and they to him. Americans no longer hold clergy in such high regard, according to a recent poll, Read more
When you were conceived, there were millions of sperm competing to fertilize a waiting ovum. One did so. Every other combination of sperm and ovum would have been a different person. The one moment in the whole history of the universe when any of them could have come into existence passed at that moment. They Read more
It is no secret that Pope Francis is getting pushback from certain corners of the church these days. The church in the United States has been infected by the same harshness and polarization that inflame our politics. Our faith is challenged by ongoing polemics between Catholics labeled progressive and conservative. The due reverence afforded the papacy Read more
A study by the IFO think tank in Munich found that electric vehicles in Germany emit 11 – 28 percent more carbon dioxide than their diesel counterparts. The study considered the production of batteries as well as the German electricity mix in making this determination. Germany spent thousands of euros on electric car subsidies per Read more
Please don’t kill me. That was my first reaction to the End of Life Choice Bill that the polls show most of the population agrees with. Of course, although I’m in my mid-sixties, I’m reasonably hale and hearty and surrounded by people I know and love in a warm house by the sea. I am Read more
Two new reports conclude that China is engaging in organ harvesting and a child separation campaign against the country’s Uighur Muslim minority. China’s ambassador to the U.K., Liu Xiaoming, has denied a BBC investigation’s findings, which concluded that Muslim children in the Uighur-majority region of western Xinjiang are being systematically separated from their parents. The Read more