Did you know you were a blessing?
I direct the question that serves as this column’s headline to readers of The Message who are of predominantly European descent. Your families built this diocese throughout the 1800s and 1900s – long before it became the Diocese of Evansville. You are mostly German, and I am at least a...Read full story »
Thursday, June 07, 2018
'Better late than never'
Thomas McFall took to Twitter last month with a series of posts about something he experienced in an Ohio college classroom. You … I … all of us … need to hear this story, as told in a series of Twitter posts that I’ve combined here. McFall writes: “Hey guys, I know I...Read full story »
Thursday, May 24, 2018
The tests of time
“ … and then one day you find, 10 years have got behind you….” (Lyrics from “Time” by Pink Floyd, from the album “Dark Side of the Moon”) When Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” album was new and climbing toward No. 1 on the...Read full story »
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Cisco Lloveras showed us the face of 'the saints next door'
In my opinion, Cisco Lloveras was the kind of person Pope Francis had in mind when he wrote “Gaudete et Exsultate,” an apostolic exhortation in which he seeks to “re-propose the call to holiness in a practical way for our own time, with all its risks, challenges and opportunites&#...Read full story »
Thursday, April 26, 2018
Salvation's menu
In the Gospel for this coming Sunday (April 15), Luke recounts Jesus’ appearance to the disciples following his encounter with two of them along the road to Emmaus. As a way of showing his believers, once again, that he rose from the dead, he took a piece of fish and ate it in front of them (...Read full story »
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
Today: Remember our brothers and sisters in the Holy Land
This issue of The Message arrives in most homes on Good Friday. Digital subscribers received their electronic copies on Holy Thursday. The Paschal Triduum has begun, and the Holy Land is more intensely on our collective mind than possibly (and probably) any other time of year. During Good Fr...Read full story »
Thursday, March 29, 2018
Stay a while longer … and invite others
This column actually is an invitation to all of you. Please stay a while longer with The Message, and invite others to join you. We are grateful for your readership, and we work every day to earn your loyalty and continuing support. Why this column … why now? We have reached the time of year...Read full story »
Thursday, March 01, 2018
Same message, different day
Recently in this space, I concluded with this thought: “Help (people) to recognize the concept of having faith in God, and you just might enable the Holy Spirit to ‘get a foot in the door.’ He will take it from there.” It appears as though the act of writing that column invo...Read full story »
Thursday, February 15, 2018
I believe
By my reckoning, Christian Picciolini was about to renounce the white-power movement in 1995 when the Cincinnati-based band Blessid Union of Souls released its first album, “Home,” which featured the song “I Believe.” I was driving through Arkansas the next year, on my way h...Read full story »
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
This choice is pretty much a 'no-brainer'
National School Choice Week begins Sunday – just a week before 2018 Catholic Schools Week. I made a brief jaunt around the Internet before beginning this column, and it only took a few minutes to confirm my view that choosing Catholic schools is pretty much a “no-brainer.” Many of...Read full story »
Thursday, January 18, 2018
