National Catholic Reporter

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Spirituality

Digital tool kit collects resources for young adult ministry

Young adults in the Catholic church: Where are they? You could say they're all over the place: Some are regular Mass attendees, some are away from home, some don't attend Mass, some are mothers, some are in...

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Conservative law firm fights atheists' suit over cross at 9/11 museum

A lawsuit that was filed by the group American Atheists to keep a revered cross out of the National September 11 Museum is being challenged by a conservative law firm that defends the public display of...

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Seeking Jesus' presence as I am disappearing

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LENT

Doctors diagnosed Jane McAllister with Alzheimer’s disease eight years ago. Alzheimer’s is the sixth-leading cause of death in the U.S. It cannot be prevented or cured, its course as inexorable as the events leading to the passion and death of Jesus. Some 15 million Alzheimer’s caregivers provide 17 billion hours of unpaid, loving care each year. It is not uncommon for patients and caregivers to wonder: Where is resurrection in a disease that takes away our very selves?

Why I love 'Downton Abbey'

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COLUMN

"Don't be defeatist, dear; it's very middle-class."

If you recognize this quote, you're probably a fan -- make that a fanatic -- of the PBS series "Downton Abbey." There are millions of us spanning several continents, making the Masterpiece Theater mini-series that just finished its second season a veritable pop culture phenomenon.

Former Anglican priests begin formation to be ordained Catholic priests

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HOUSTON -- Forty-two former Anglican priests from across the country have officially begun their training to become Catholic priests.

It was both a long-awaited milestone and the beginning of a new journey as they gathered in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston for the first formation weekend in late January at St. Mary Seminary and Our Lady of Walsingham Church in Houston.

The group included the wives of the Catholic clergy-in-training, so there was a total of 76 participants.

More than 100 former Anglican priests have applied to become Catholic priests for the U.S. Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. To date, 42 have been accepted into the program.

The application process for each candidate included a criminal background check, psychological evaluation and recommendations from the Catholic bishop where he lives and from his Anglican ecclesiastical authority, if possible.

Bringing God to the rhythms of our days

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COMMENTARY

As readers of my “Distinctly Catholic” blog on the NCR website know, I came down with the flu at the beginning of the year. Seven days of it. Yuck.

Because I could not get out of bed, I missed Mass twice. And, consequently, for the weeks that followed, I never knew quite which day it was. I felt like a cat that falls and doesn’t land on all fours, disoriented and flustered. The whole week wasn’t right because it had not started the way it was supposed to.

It is so easy to take Sunday Mass for granted. We all lead busy lives. We look at the church bulletin and see that our parish church has four or five Masses every weekend. Protestants don’t do that. Why all this effort to make Mass available to people? Because, without the Mass, nothing else seems meaningful. Without the Eucharist, we are a hungry people.

Praying for New Orleans, one block at a time

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NEW ORLEANS -- Millie Campbell slipped the transmission into reverse and backed her blue Chevrolet away from her spotless brick home. "Oh God," she said, "we thank you for the blood of Jesus."

Then the 76-year-old cranked the wheel straight, put the car into drive, and headed slowly up Frenchmen Street, one hand on the wheel, the other turned upward toward the heavens.

The 'schoolboys' have no real authority

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VIEWPOINT

In the very early years of the 20th century, my dad attended primary school in a one-room country grade school on the plains of central Kansas. Conditions were still very rustic on the frontier in those days. They had just the basics. There were no phones, no electric lights and no indoor plumbing. The roads were of dirt, and the law was miles away. One teacher taught all eight grades and had to be a fairly tough and self-sufficient individual.

The instinct to worship

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Christmas

About “early holiday decorations and shopping,” it seems, little more can helpfully be said. But what can be said about the “Christmas story” will always be inexhaustible. Even, for example, about demigods and demagogues before whom, unaccountably, human beings have so long been inclined to bow their knees.

In the ancient Near East, kings represented the gods -- and were reverenced accordingly. Israel’s monotheism provided a sharp critique not only of polytheism but of all ruler-worship. But after Julius Caesar, deification of the Roman emperor became common (probably of course taken most seriously among the less educated classes). Augustus was certainly regarded as a god, and on the denarius that Peter found in the fish and showed to Jesus there would have been the inscription “Son of the Divine Augustus.” In the Greek-speaking but multiethnic East, ruler worship was even more common.

Nor was the practice simply ancient. Think of the way Nazi crowds idolized Hitler (and how neo-Nazi terrorists are active today).

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Bare before the truth of the word

Gathered together once again in the presence of God’s living and effective word, we are revealed for who we are before God and others and, even better, God is revealed, yet again, in our midst. Like the author of Hebrews (second reading) who understood the power of God’s word to cut to the quick of all matters so as to lay bare the truth, the 12th-century doctor of the church Bernard of...

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How to find community in a church in schism

Viewpoint: It seems that the older I get, the more reflective I become. I tend to move slower but think deeper.

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In the footsteps of saints, contemplative tradition persists on Lindisfarne

In central London, a stone's throw from St. Pancras rail station, is one of the world's largest libraries, container of national treasures including the Lindisfarne Gospels, begun about the year...

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In This Issue

May 24-June 6, 2013

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