Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Continued from last week… When Catholics came to the United States, they were a minority community, often looked upon as foreign and undesirable. Political parties were a way to become more American and find protection from the rampant anti-Catholicism prevalent in the public sphere (a spirit that has never disappeared from the American political landscape, only sometimes dipped below the surface). While this may have assisted in assimilating to American culture, the cost for many Catholics has been a prioritization of party over faith. Unfortunately, we often see Catholics trying to express or justify…read more

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, The call of the Lord in this Sunday’s Gospel, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s,” always has special resonance for me, as it is a call to sincere conversion away from earthly things and the idolatry of worldly concerns to a more perfect following after Christ. This conversion is always needed, and rarely easy. We are all susceptible to worldly idolatry, and especially to the temptation to put our hope in civic, state, or federal leaders rather than in God. This, in fact, is an important consideration in…read more

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, An occasional experience, though not very common in my life but more common for me in my years as a pastor than ever before, is receiving an interview request. Each time one comes, I confess that I get excited. Only people writing for our Diocesan newspaper ever want to interview me – I’m not that interesting – but that does not make the request less entertaining for me. And so it was that I was asked to give an interview to the Fairfield County Catholic this week. The subject matter, frankly, surprised me. I…read more