By Michael Patrick O’Brien– “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” – A Tale of Two Cities (1859) I first read the classic, opening lines…
Posts published in August 2018
By Gary Topping– Scholars think the Book of Job is the oldest book in the Bible, based on the lack of any mention of the Mosaic law or the historical…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– One warm summer day in 2011, I visited two old stone churches that stand adjacent on a hill in Omagh, Northern Ireland. For many years these…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– My royal limousine fifty years ago, for the last blissful, carefree school year of my childhood, was a dark blue, forty seat, standard-issue, military bus. We…
By Gary Topping– Just when we Catholics were hoping that we might have turned the corner on the gut-wrenching scandal of child abuse among our clergy, along comes the revelation…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The durm and strang of the abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church during the past two decades have caused, unfortunately, some to overlook or…
By Gary Topping– Chimayo is a small village in the New Mexico highlands about thirty miles northeast of Santa Fe. Calling it a village is actually a bit of a…
By Michael Patrick O’Brien– After our recent trip to London, I am reading a fascinating book by historian William Manchester about the early life and middle career of Winston Churchill.…
By Gary Topping– In the current issue of America magazine, Fr. Sam Sawyer, S.J. poses the question, “Would Jesus eat with Sarah Sanders”? He is referring, of course, to a…