Today on “Conversation with Cardinal Dolan,” Monsignor Jim Vlaun and I discuss preparations for Lent, my visit to Rome, and the food of Fat Tuesday.
Podcast (homilies): Download (15.7MB)
Today on “Conversation with Cardinal Dolan,” we’re broadcasting from Rome! I’m with Cardinal Kevin Farrell in the Karol Wojtyła Studio at Vatican Radio to talk about the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life.
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…
Feast of St. Edward the Confessor
As we have just happily witnessed, the world is fixed on the papacy–thanks in part to Pope Francis! I am happy to announce that today, Our Sunday Visitor, made my new book on the three most recent popes available for free download. A short excerpt:
… I would like to look at our three most recent popes, who have been particularly compelling agents of Christ. These three popes have been genuine gifts to the Church in bringing Jesus to the world. This is hardly to suggest that there were not other popes throughout history who serve…
This posting comes to you from Rome! Here I am, for three weeks, with 270 other bishops from all over the globe — in company with priests, sisters, theologians, and married couples (the first intervention from the synod floor was from a Mexican married couple, and there is even a little baby crying in the background) — to consider, in ordered and prayerful conversation, the timely topic, The Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and the Contemporary World.
Pope Francis (still beaming from his visit to us) is here, too. Yes, he made a short yet perceptive…
It’s good to be back home! I returned last night from the Synod of Bishops in Rome, where, for the last two weeks, bishops from all the world, with the Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis, listened to God’s Holy Word, one another, and married couples in an inspired conversation on Marriage and the Family.
It was clear to me, once again, that the Church is our spiritual family. So, I’m happy to be back with you, my family, my home, the Church in the archdiocese of New York.
We’ve got a lot of work to do: I’m still busy raising money…
George Weigel writes in the Wall Street Journal about a wonderful tradition in Rome…that is undertaken by Americans! (It was begun by seminarians and student-priests from the Pontifical North American College…where I used to be stationed.) As we prepare to begin Lent, I thought you’d enjoy this piece:
“On March 5, Ash Wednesday, hundreds of residents of Rome will begin a six-and-a-half-week long pilgrimage to the Roman station churches of Lent—a tradition that began in the earliest days of legalized Christianity but, until recently, had lain fallow…
The station churches themselves, especially those off the tourist track, often astonish. The apse…