Commentary Touching on an incident where a priest hearing confessions was pepper-sprayed, a recent article from OSV News looked at how clergy and layfolk might balance security with welcome and worship. It is an uncomfortable subject. While staffers at weekend Mass in one North Carolina parish include armed off-duty police officers, many Catholics may balk […]
Elizabeth Scalia: To mark ‘Year of Prayer,’ practice often
Commentary Recently I shared on social media that for Lent, and for the “Year of Prayer,” I was committing to memory a version of the Breastplate of St. Patrick. It is a powerful confession of belief that includes a rather comprehensive request for supernatural protections. It also beautifully seeks out the permeating presence of Jesus […]
Elizabeth Scalia: Remember prayer comes in many forms
Commentary St. Philip Neri once had a penitent confess to indulging in gossip. He advised the contrite soul to bring him a chicken, and to pluck its feathers as he walked the streets of Rome. When the man showed up with the chicken, his penance fulfilled, the great saint told him, “Now, brother, gather up […]
Elizabeth Scalia: Yes, ‘accompaniment’ is going to get messy
COMMENTARY It’s not an easy discussion but it’s one Catholics should have. The United States just watched an abortion drama in Texas that ended when 31 year-old Kate Cox, then over 20 weeks pregnant, left the state in order to procure a legal abortion. The Texas Supreme Court had ruled that Cox and her […]
Elizabeth Scalia: When the holy water fonts are dry
COMMENTARY In chapter 31 of her autobiography, the 16th- century Carmelite St. Teresa of Avila — one of four female doctors of the church, including her spiritual daughter, St. Thérèse of Lisieux — urges us toward frequent use of one particular, very common and (usually) widely available sacramental. “From long experience I have learned […]
Elizabeth Scalia: Reading aloud to another
COMMENTARY In Harper Lee’s classic novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” there is a point where Atticus Finch, seeking to teach his son about making reparation for damaging another’s property (and about something else, too) orders his young son Jem to visit the bedside of sickly old Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose and read aloud to her. […]
Elizabeth Scalia: Let the jeering skulls laugh
IT IS GOOD Like St. Teresa of Avila, I have a skull on my desk. Two, actually — one plain and one riotously decorated in green and purple. I think they’re funny; they remind me not to take myself, or the world, too seriously. When I have tied myself into knots due to some perceived […]
Elizabeth Scalia: The prayers of Bakhita
COMMENTARY When she was canonized by Pope St. John Paul in 2000, Josephine Bakhita immediately became the patron saint of survivors of human trafficking. Even a cursory read of her story more than explains why. Kidnapped from the Sudanese village where her father was a chieftain and ironically renamed “Bakhita” (Arabic for the “lucky” or […]
