I have just received word that, after voting to remove a large statue of St. Junípero Serra that stands in front of their City Hall, the government of Ventura, California (which is in my pastoral region) is now considering removing the image of Padre Serra from the county seal.
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A principal reason why the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s was so successful both morally and practically was that it was led largely by people with a strong religious sensibility.
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Recently, the bishops of California made a statement regarding the attacks on the statues of St. Junipero Serra in San Francisco, Ventura, and Los Angeles.
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It is in a way providential that the Feast of Pentecost arrives this year just as our country is going through a convulsive social crisis. For the Holy Spirit, whose coming we celebrate on Pentecost, is a power meant to transform the world, or in the language of Psalm 104, “to renew the face of the earth.” Pentecost, accordingly, is never simply for the Church; it is for the world by means of the Church.
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There is a curious and intriguing passage in the third chapter of St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, which in the context of the missive seems almost tossed-off, but which has proven to be a cornerstone of Catholic moral theology for the past two thousand years
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One silver lining for me during this weird coronavirus shutdown has been the opportunity to return to some writing projects that I had left on the back-burner.
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Last week, Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, made a rather interesting theological observation.
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Tragedy sparks an awareness of contingency, and an awareness of contingency gives rise to a deeper sense of God.
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Blaise Pascal said, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
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The three classical spiritual practices that the Church urges us to embrace during Lent are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. I would strongly encourage every one of my readers to follow this recommendation, perhaps intensifying each one of the three during the holy season. But there is another Lenten discipline that I would like to put forward, inspired very much by the Gospel readings this week: forgiving an enemy.
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