In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving to be observed on the final Thursday in November throughout the United States. The precedents for such a day of thanksgiving go back much further in our history. 

On the Via Veneto just north of the Piazza Barberini in Rome is a well-known church called Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappucini. To many tourists it is more popularly known as “the bone church.”

The liturgical calendar is the Church’s schedule of feasts and seasons that mark the rhythm of our life of faith. The cornerstone of the liturgical year is Sunday, the Lord’s Day, which is always a “little Easter.”

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God!” These words of the English poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins find an echo in our hearts whenever we experience moments of transcendence or awe before the wonder of God’s creation.

It has been 10 years since I began walking the Way of Saint James, the Camino de Santiago. The Camino is a network of historic paths leading from various points in Europe to the tomb of Saint James the Greater, the son of Zebedee, friend of Jesus and the first apostle to give his life for the Gospel. 

Each year we have an opportunity to renew our prophetic commitment to promoting human dignity and sanctity of every life from conception to natural death.

This column was originally published in 2016. As this edition of the Sooner Catholic is published on August 21, I will once again be on pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago with Bishop Wall and Bishop Conley.

Restricting abortion isn’t enough. We need to open our doors to vulnerable mothers and children.

January 22, 1973, is one of the solemn dates in our nation’s history that will “live in infamy.” Today, June 24, on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, that infamy has been significantly rectified. 

Before the end of June, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue its long-anticipated abortion decision in the Dobbs case. 

I think we all would admit the past few years have been times of rapid change in our world, in our nation, in our Church and in our archdiocese.

The frenzy following the leak of Justice Alito’s draft opinion that the anticipated Dobbs decision by the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade has been jarring

“The shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger.” These words of Blessed Stanley Rother provide a good summary of the theme for Good Shepherd Sunday that the Church observes each year on the Fourth Sunday of Easter. 

“May is Mary’s month, and I muse at that and wonder why.” So begins Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem, “The May Magnificat.”

As the Church enters Holy Week and celebrates another Paschal Triduum, some may ask what Easter means in times such as these.

For weeks, the nations of the world have watched with a growing sense of horror and helplessness the unprovoked Russian invasion of Ukraine that has brought untold suffering to a sovereign nation. 

Each year during Lent, the Church invites us to set out on a journey of repentance and renewal. It’s that time of year again! We began our journey on Ash Wednesday. 

Our two principal holy days are Christmas and Easter. These are so pivotal that the joy of these celebrations cannot be expressed in a single day’s observance. 

Since 1993, the Catholic Church has observed the World Day of the Sick on Feb. 11, the Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes. This non-liturgical observance was initiated by Pope John Paul II shortly after receiving his own diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. 

It has been nearly 20 years since the spotlight of media attention made us all too aware of human frailty, sinfulness and even criminal behavior within our beloved Catholic Church and its institutions.