Today on “Conversation with Cardinal Dolan,” Father Dave Dwyer and I discuss retreats, Lent, and Saint Patrick’s Day.
Podcast (homilies): Download (19.4MB)
Thank you, Young People of Krakow!
I’m home after nearly three weeks in India and Poland, physically tired but emotionally and spiritually exhilarated. (more…)
Napa Institute
July 7, 2016
Year of Mercy
“What God has bound together,
Man must not divide!”
Jesus Christ and His Church are One.
As Earth Day, April 22, approaches, I am reflecting more on Pope Francis’ recent encyclical Laudato Si about good stewardship of “the earth our mother.” I recommend it for Earth Day reading. My memory of Pope Francis’ tiny Fiat 500 – much commented on during his recent trip to the United States – has a very particular connection with Earth Day. (more…)
The following is the homily from the Pro–Life Vigil Mass offered by Cardinal Dolan in Washington, DC on January 21.
Pro – Life Vigil Mass
National Shrine, January 21, 2016
“I know that God is with us, for God, in whose promise we glory, for in God we trust without fear. What can death do against us?”
Those noble sentiments of this evening’s psalm are certainly our own as we keep a vigil of thanksgiving for the sacred gift of life, a vigil of repentance for attacks upon life, a vigil of supplication for its protection.
Like that crowd around Jesus in this evening’s gospel,…
What to call it? “Contradictions”? “Paradoxes”? How about “creative tensions”? The latter might be the more descriptive, if a bit stale, term.
Here’s what I’m talking about : During quite a few of the sessions of the Synod on the Family here in Rome, I almost feel as if I’m on a retreat, or a day of recollection. That’s because so many perceptive and enlightening comments arise that get me thinking…
What often intrigues me is that many of the observations seem, at first glance, to be at odds with one another, so I ask myself; “Are we contradicting each other?”…
First Things has a great piece from Archbishop José Gomez, the Archbishop of Los Angeles, on the final days of the Synod and St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s family:
As Synod-2015 began its final week of work, Pope Francis canonized a married couple, Louis and Zélie Martin, whose nine children included the Doctor of the Church, St. Thérèse of Lisieux.
Louis and Zélie led a humble, hidden life. It was rooted in the rhythms of daily Mass and everyday duties—earning a living, making meals and doing the housework, teaching the children, serving in the community, and simply enjoying time together as a family. The…
“Ahhhh…marriage- man’s most optimistic endeavor!
So claims the legendary sports announcer of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Vin Scully.
The Synod has acknowledged anew what God’s people have known “from the beginning”: that to live a loving, lifelong, faithful, life-giving marriage takes sacrifice, hard work, and heroic virtue.
To believe this to be possible, as Vin Scully would remind us, is “most optimistic.”
Perhaps this is one of the reasons many of our young people do not get married. Recent studies in the United States tell us that only 50% of our young people now approach the sacrament of matrimony. Live together? Yes. Marry? …
As you know, I’ve been in Rome for nearly three weeks participating in the Synod of the Family.
So many good points have arisen here in our meetings. Yes, there has been some give-and-take, even some disagreement. As the Holy Father observed, that’s not bad at all. Come to think about it, this also characterized meetings in the earliest days of the Church, as is evident in the Act of the Apostles.
One of many points upon which there has been unanimous and enthusiastic accord was this: that one of the more powerful ways we as a Church support and strengthen marriages…