By Michael Patrick O’Brien– When I was a young boy in the 1970s, my family was trying to recover from a painful divorce. My mother took us to visit the…

By Gary Topping– Like the Blue Mouse theater that Mike O’Brien, our blogger-in-chief, wrote about recently, the much older Utah Theater in downtown Salt Lake City is also now closed. …

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Although I saw Utah’s Trappist monks at their old Huntsville monastery all the time, I never expected them to make an appearance at the state’s best…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– My mother often told us about her childhood visits in the early 1940s with her favorite uncle, a gregarious New England Catholic priest born in Limerick,…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– My departed older brother, Kevin Peter (“Pete”) O’Brien Jr., lived a complicated life and died a complicated death. And yet, it is a 175-year old Shaker…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– Usually I write about the monks I know/knew, including those who retired to Salt Lake City after Huntsville’s Abbey of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity…

Michael Patrick O’Brien– Venice is not known for its tango, but that now may change after my visit there a few years ago. The tango originated not in Italy, but…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– I did not realize it at the time, but almost a half century ago, I got an early glimpse of the future of the Catholic Church.…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– A profound surprise from six decades of life is my unusual affection for Quonset huts. This strange architectural ardor is not derived from the prefab semi-circular…

By Michael Patrick O’Brien– The eight billion of us who cling to this giant spinning orb called earth like round numbers that match our round world. We set lunch appointments…