The Narthex

After walking to San Diego’s Spruce Street in exploratory mode, I chanced upon a charming historical site, which still hovers in my memory: a suspension footbridge that looked to be about 400 feet long. Later I learned it was built in 1912 for access to a trolley line by homes…

When I was twelve and going to Mass daily, my Masonic father slammed his hand on our kitchen table one evening and asked, “What’s this about daily Mass? No more of it.” I suppose my "excessive" religiosity was from watching Bishop Fulton Sheen on TV every week. Perhaps because my…

My globetrotting has currently landed me in the Northern Italian city of Bologna for about a half year. A large university town with a vibrant social scene, Bologna also happens to be the location of the famous Basilica San Domenico (St. Dominic, 13th-century Catholic priest and founder of the Dominican…

I received a phone call from my 91-year-old friend Lou, who had asked me for advice on several occasions. I had just awakened from a nap, but my grogginess vanished on hearing the urgent tone of his voice. Lately his health had been failing from a hiatal hernia that caused…

Review of: Mere Marriage: Sexual Difference and Christian Doctrine. By Andrew D. Cannon, Ph.D. Alphonsus Publishing, available at MereMarriage.com. 215 pages. $24.95.   George Weigel devoted eleven pages of his 1999 biography of Pope John Paul II, Witness to Hope, to the saint-pope’s Theology of the Body. He concluded that…

Houdini was the master of illusion in the 1920s. Like today’s David Copperfield -- the highest paid solo performer in history -- Houdini mystified rapt audiences with incredible death-defying acts. As a youth he worked his card tricks and vanishing acts in dime circuses. After training as a locksmith he…

In our everyday decisions we use hearsay reputations to decide, say, for or against a dentist or doctor. Reliable references from former patients are helpful, and as social animals we are inclined to run with the herd to survive. Hearsay statements are used to prove truth or falsehood but are…

Transparency is important. Interested in the latest batch of election returns? In California, the Secretary of State posts them in real time. Concerned about what Rome’s doing with the yearly Peter’s Pence collection? An audit is in order, isn’t it? Wondering about what Corporate is concocting? Try lobbying for more…

I looked at the wall clock in our kitchen and saw both a large and small hand pointing straight up at an odd symbol. At five years old, I had an idea it meant food when the hands overlapped there. Whenever that happened, Mom would tell me it’s lunchtime. Now,…

Yesterday I saw a black toy car about the size of a shoe box with 3-inch tires zip around the street, zigzagging, bucking, and avoiding curbs and bushes. Then I spotted a young boy remotely operating it, using an electronic device with his thumbs, signaling that plastic beast what to…

Today when someone says Amazon, most think of the gargantuan retailer with tributaries throughout the world. But of course it's named after the Amazon River in South America, the world’s second longest river with 1,000 tributaries fertilizing Earth’s largest drainage basin. During the dry season, the Amazon's width reaches a…

In the last week or so I’ve had two friends ask me the same hard question about evangelizing, though in different ways. What follows is how I answered them. If nothing else, I got some practice in answering questions that Catholics, as strangers in a strange land, need to address.…

In Matthew 19:12 Christ suggests His male disciples may want to make themselves (figurative) eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. In Orthodox Jewish culture, men are expected to obey God’s directive to reproduce and sire offspring; Jewish women still judge barrenness a stigma. Why would Christ incur…

Hope and optimism are often confused. An American wit, whose name I can’t recall, once defined a pessimist as “an optimist with the facts.” I must admit I love that kind of pithy, cynical humor that Americans do so well. Such cracks work well because there’s at least a grain…

Self-anointed prophets have often attempted to pinpoint doomsday. They were obviously wrong. But now, the prophets of scientism are speculating that Earth is due for its Seventh Mass Extinction. A controversial MIT study from 1972 claims we are right on track for a global collapse of civilization by 2040. Historical…