TOGETHERNESS AND COMMUNITY AFTER THE PANDEMIC David Byrne’s American Utopia was very much in my mind in the months leading up to the COVID pandemic. Sharing a name with his 2018 album, Byrne first built a tour that traveled the world in an imaginative staging not limited by wires or…

Not just a pandemic and unrest make this an unusual inauguration. So does Joe Biden. It’s not an easy thing for the director of The Bernardin Center to acknowledge. Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was archbishop of Chicago from 1982 until his death in 1996. In those years, Bernardin became one of…

It’s easy. The same way a Catholic can vote for anybody else. The way the Church tells us to vote. 2020 brings us the twelfth presidential election since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. There are eleven reasons to believe that this twelfth election will not stop abortions. Yet, still…

Can a good Catholic vote for Joe Biden? Among Catholics, there is almost no question asked more often as we head toward Election Day. And of course, the answer is Yes! Good Catholics also can vote for Donald Trump. There is no “good Catholic” way to vote. There are good…

It’s Time to Sing the Praises of Politicians and the Political Vocation I can remember the chill that ran through me the day I saw the slogan in print for the first time. I was teaching at the University of South Carolina campus in Aiken. It was about a dozen…

A Catholic Reflection on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Propositions of Religious Liberty All of political life is sharing. That’s not easy to appreciate today when so much of our discourse focuses on maintaining divisions and drawing lines. But the deepest meaning of politics is that it is about a sharing…

Bernie Sander’s Disappointed Supporters Would Do America a Favor If They Would Learn That Quickly Freedom is hard. This is not an academic point. Freedom means accepting not just that we disagree, but that others are wrong. …

I want to take note of a few facts as I begin here — Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA) resigned from the House after being accused of sexual misconduct in July, 2017. Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D-NV) both resigned from the House after being accused of sexual…

Why I Think about Retiring to My Vineyard — As CBS begins streaming Picard this month, I find a kindred soul in the old, bald hero of Maxia. …