+ + + Sign of the Crossing + + +

This is a retrospective piece, a flyer that I distributed at a rally in October 2016. Pro-life friends, this rally is not about the Lord Franklin Graham is visiting state capitals to argue that the Lord wants you to support an ignorant, racist, misogynist fraud for President, because the alternative is worse. From my perspective, the most important detail in today’s very strange presentation is the claim that Trump will push back against abortion. About 1.2 million children die from surgical abortion annually in the USA, and their moms are deceived and exploited, and Hillary Clinton supports this violence. But abortion is not on the ballot. Trump is. He wants your vote, and has made promises. But a bankruptcy is a list of broken promises! Sometimes you can’t help it; you can’t keep a promise; you have to ask creditors for patience and understanding. But six times? And now he’s rich but still doesn’t pay the people he stiffed? If he lies to people wholesale, not retail, why do...

I am still working on a short book about hospitality and immigration in the life and teaching of the Fathers of the Church. But I have done enough that I can see where I will end up. I draw three key lessons about hospitality from the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. First, all the major Fathers of the Church did indeed take the lessons from Abraham at Mamre and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount very seriously. They were crystal clear that there is a serious obligation to care for those in need, including strangers. They were eloquent about the blessings attached to serving the poor – both the obviously intrinsic blessings and the less obviously attached rewards for obedience. They were forceful about the punishments attached to a failure to serve those in need, including strangers. On the other hand, the Fathers did not agree about the identity of a “stranger.” St. Jerome’s opinion was emphatic: there is no limitation to this category: person whom you meet whom you don’t know is a...

August 7, 2017 A few days ago, a national Catholic organization held its annual convention, and issued a revealing and challenging pair of resolutions. (There were a dozen resolutions, actually, but two that belong together.) The group is intelligently and honestly committed to service to the Lord and to the Church, and actually sworn (!) to serve the Pope and bishops. But in a resolution about abortion, the organization reiterated its stance: we will defend children. Faced with a resolution on another issue of grave importance in the eyes of the Church’s leadership – immigration – the organization urged prayer for our country in a time of division and tension. Prayer. I’m in favor of prayer. But I am wary of a call for prayer when there’s a need for action as well.  Suppose you ask the Lord to do XYZ, and he responds, “Good idea! I give you the power to make it happen!” And then you ask him again to do XYZ. That may not be prayer; it may be simple laziness, or simple diso...