Service Projects Bill Droel This is a sign of the times: Thousands of Catholic young adults now participate in service projects and even in a year-long volunteer corps. These volunteer opportunities are not only offered through Catholic schools, religious orders and agencies. Other denominations and secular institutions also have service projects in which Catholics serve […]
Thanksgiving Images Bill Droel Our image of Thanksgiving Day is influenced by famous paintings, including from 1915 The First Thanksgiving by Jean Louis Ferris (1893-1930) and from 1943 the still popular Four Freedoms by Norman Rockwell (1894-1978). These images serve a purpose even though they compress history and though celebrations in most homes are not […]
Pope Francis: ‘Unbridled Consumerism’ Is Destroying Our Planet Cole Mellino | November 13, 2014 9:55 am | In what has become an annual tradition, Pope Francis wrote a letter to Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister of Australia and this year’s leader of the G20 Summit, which will take place Nov. 15-16 in Brisbane, Australia. On the heels of […]
The Working Catholic Bill Droel Gifts That Keep Moving This is the season for gratitude. First up is our national day of Thanksgiving on which we express gratitude to God for our beautiful country and for our relatives, even those who are a tad rowdy at the day’s get together. Thereafter begins three and a […]
The Working Catholic Bill Droel Thanksgiving, Part I This past summer Oracle, Arizona reflected back to us two defining cultural images. Oracle with a population of about 4,000 is 40 miles north of Tucson and it is slightly more than 100 miles north of Mexico. It was founded in the late 1870s as a mining […]
The Working Catholic Relevant Saint? By Bill Droel October is a great month for saints: St. Therese Lisieux (the Little Flower), St. Boniface, St. Damien of Hawaii, St. Teresa Avila, St. Luke, St. Jean de Brebeuf of Canada, St. John Paul II and several more. And October is also the month for the second most […]
The Working Catholic Bill Droel The New Suburban Poverty The very idea of a suburb in the United States has long been promoted as a safe, affordable family-friendly place; that is, as an alternative to a less-desirable, polluted, somewhat dangerous urban neighborhood, and one dense with rental units. Historically in Europe and Africa a suburb […]
Pope Appoints New Promoter of Justice American Jesuit Father Robert Geisinger to Become Vatican’s New “Chief Prosecutor” Vatican City, September 10, 2014 (Zenit.org) Staff Reporter | Pope Francis has appointed Father Robert J. Geisinger SJ to the post of Promoter of Justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Vatican Radio reports. […]
The Working Catholic Bill Droel Urban Revival and Suburban Poverty The N.Y. Times recently reported that the population of downtown Kansas City, Missouri has increased 50% over the last dozen-plus years. Entertainment venues, restaurants, the arts, higher education and office firms have likewise invested in downtown. Urban planners and developers there predict downtown residents will […]