Columns

I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you… (Luke 22:15). These words of our Lord at the Last Supper have made a deep impression on me, and I will never be able to get over them.

When Jesus instituted the Eucharist at the Last Supper, he held up bread and wine as two elements within which to make himself especially present to us.

In recent years, the number of young people with gender dysphoria, or extreme discomfort in one’s biological sex, has skyrocketed in the U.S. and Western Europe.

It is a true blessing that we again get to open the doors of our 14 Catholic elementary schools. It’s with great awe and wonder that we profess the love of Christ to the more than 1,900 children attending.

Earlier this summer, I had the opportunity to spend six weeks studying at the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, Poland.

Several years ago, I participated in the annual meeting of the Academy of Catholic Theology, a group of about 50 theologians dedicated to thinking according to the mind of the church.

More than 50 years ago, Philip Rieff wrote a book entitled “The Triumph of the Therapeutic.” In it, he argued that widespread reliance upon private therapy today arose in the secularized world largely because community has broken down.

We call St. Benedict of Nursia the father of monks, and his teaching on spiritual fatherhood drew me, in part, to become a Benedictine oblate.