How to be a 24/7 Catholic! The Catholic Briefcase: Tools for Integrating Faith and Work, by Randy Hain, Liguori Publications, November 23, 2011 Reviewed by Mark Armstrong It is always interesting to see our Faith in action from those who arrive at Catholicism from a different Christian doorway. Randy Hain integrates his life choices beautifully […]
Did you have a difficult childhood or do you know someone who had a difficult childhood? What difference does it make, anyway, to one’s adulthood, what kind of childhood is in the background? I think we can use the analogy of constructing and furnishing a house, for constructing and furnishing a “self.” A reasonably happy […]
I am not a coffee drinker; my mother on the other hand, having grown up in New Orleans, would gulp down ten to twelve cups a day. But not me. So what do I do on my coffee break? I indulge in a quick read here at Catholic Lane or on my other favorite Catholic […]
When I was in 4th grade, I wrote my first short story. My teacher was the first in my school who wanted to try a “creative classroom.” After we finished our assigned work, she had stations we could go to with extra projects. One included story starts. I took one of the cards and wrote […]
With the name of the great author Charles Dickens, titles such as A Christmas Carol or Great Expectations frequently come to mind. Otherwise, Hard Times and A Tale of Two Cities will leap to the lips of those more literate. Yet one of his lesser-known works highly deserving of attention is Little Dorrit, written in the […]
Canadian author Dorothy Pilarski writes with profundity and wit about matters practical and divine in her book, Motherhood Matters. Full of anecdotes and humor, this book makes us take an honest look at the lives of women today, and helps us to focus on what matters most. Has “liberation” truly led to greater happiness for women? Are […]
Pope Pius XII and World War II The Policies and Politics of Pope Pius XII: Between Diplomacy and Morality, by Frank J. Coppa. New York: Peter Lang, 2011. 205 pages. Paperback. ISBN 978-1-4331-0521-0. $36.95 Dr. Frank J. Coppa is a history professor at St. John’s University and has authored a number of books on the […]
Last week, “Saudi Arabia’s religious police arrested an Indonesian housemaid for casting a magic spell on a local family and ‘turning its life upside down.’” The maid “confessed” to using sorcery, and “commission experts took the magic items to their office and managed to dismantle and stop the spell.” Far from being absurd aberrations to […]
***Spoiler Alert—The plot is discussed here in detail for parental benefit. I intend for the level of detail I provide here to help facilitate a discussion with your child even if you have not read the series yourself. Parents want to know who their children are spending time with, what music they are listening to, […]
The Tripods Attack! is the first book in the Young Chesterton Chronicles, an adventure series aimed at middle and high-school age boys. Its main character is a fictional, teenaged GK Chesterton. In The Tripods Attack! Gilbert fights off an alien invasion with the help of his mentor, Father Brown, and his best friend, the youthful […]
There are many wonderful books about Catholic saints available. Most of you probably own some of them. Perhaps you even have some collecting dust in your home. They looked so interesting, but you never found the time to read them. So, why should you purchase another one? Because in the new A Book of Saints […]
A friend once said to me that all religions are by nature conservative and so are people who take religion seriously because religion exists to bring something from the more or less distant past forward into the future. G. K. Chesterton said that “the Catholic Church is the only thing which saves a man from […]
Some things are meant to be shared. Friendship with Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta is one of those things. I personally know three people who were friends with Mother Teresa and like a second-class relic, those second-class friendships leave me feeling somehow closer to her. Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle is one of those friends who was […]
In the midst of living your vocation did you ever wonder what became of some of your college classmates? Since graduating in 1992 I have been continually surprised at how fellow Franciscan University alums have popped up on the radar — locally and nationally. Seeing Regina Doman’s books on the shelf of a local Catholic […]
There’s a brutal invasion sweeping across our country, attacking our decency and humanity from the inside out. While we enjoy eating fresh produce, consuming chocolate candy, staying at a clean hotel, or getting our nails done, human trafficking has often been crouching in the background as a ruthless supplier for these goods and services. Other […]
One of the most vivid childhood memories is sitting in my parish church, gazing up at a large fresco of the Child Jesus and St Josephworking in their carpentry shop. I wondered what the pair discussed amid the rasping of their tools and fragrant wood shavings. My childish faith imagination helped me forge a deep […]
If knowledge is, as they say, power, then you will find great empowerment in Teresa Tomeo’s latest book Extreme Makeover (Ignatius Press, October, 2011). Extreme Makeover: Women Transformed by Christ, Not Conformed to the Culture offers an excellent combination of facts, statistics, and personal testimonies to make this the sort of book that any reader […]
In a textbook example of blooming where you are planted, Long Island mom Lisa Mladinich is quietly building a successful second career by sharing what she has learned about passing the Catholic faith on to future generations. It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that she must have been a child prodigy in her first career. […]
For reasons that are both understandable and regrettable, apologetics, the science of demonstrating the reasonableness of religious doctrine, is not often mentioned in public life these days. In part, this is due to the demands of charity and prudence, to avoid unnecessary and often acrimonious strife among religious denominations in a nation which has benefited […]
A review of The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion vs. Environmental Religion in Contemporary America & Grizzly Man Who among us has not, in a whimsical or polemical moment, deployed religious metaphors to criticize or belittle a professional or ideological adversary who does not quite see things the way one might wish? That economist at […]
The new movie, The Help, based on Kathryn Stockett’s best-selling book by the same name, continues to lead ticket sales at the box office. Both dramatize the extent and tragedy of segregation and discrimination in the South during the early 1960s. Racism affected almost every area of Southern (and many areas of Northern) society before […]
It’s not very PC to consider yourself a drinker. Alcohol has a bad rap, and its consumption is best kept to a minimum in public and polite society. Think I’m joking? Not too long ago, at a military ball, an official announcement was made that anyone who had had anything at all to drink had […]
How many unfinished books do you have lying around the house? One, two, maybe even half a dozen? I used to think it was just me, but then someone mentioned her stack of unfinished books and I realized that there were more people “out there” that suffered through the same dreadful, almost embarrassing, book-reading experience […]
I’m an animal lover. At this time, two dogs, a cat, and a hamster are part of our family. For ten years, I’ve uplifted the spirits of nursing home residents and staff by bringing dogs in to visit. My kids and I regularly witness the power of our furry friends. At one nursing home, there […]
