In this conversation, Phyllis gives historical and cultural context for the office of the diaconate, including conciliar documents of the early church that support the ordination of women as deacons. She takes us through the findings of pontifical and theological commissions convened to study the issue of the women’s diaconate over the past fifty years, with a special focus on the problems of the second pontifical commission’s report published last December, and explores important distinctions between the priesthood and diaconate and installed and ordained ministries.

Phyllis also shares how lay ministries such as lector, acolyte, and catechist can function as avenues for lay preaching and help the church acclimate to seeing women at the altar, looks at the emerging role of parish life coordinator Pope Francis spoke of in his apostolic exhortation Querida Amazonia, and describes the idea that women cannot image Christ as a “heresy” with implications for female health and safety worldwide. “If the church is going to encourage the world to believe in the humanity of women,” she says, “the church has ways it can move.”

See also:

The Vatican and Women Deacons, official page at Orbis Books

Phyllis Zagano, “They Don’t Want to Say Yes,” Commonweal, July 28, 2026

Phyllis Zagano, “Where the Women Deacons Question Stands at the Vatican,” March 13, 2026

Justin McClellan, “Vatican Commission Votes Against Ordaining Female Deacons,” National Catholic Reporter, December 4, 2025

Colleen Dulle, “Vatican to German Bishops: No Lay People Preaching Homilies at Mass,” America, June 23, 2026

Annie McAuliffe, “New Book Illuminates True Barrier to Women’s Diaconate,” National Catholic Reporter, August 29, 2026

Theologian David Dault’s faculty web page at Loyola College states that his scholarship “resists easy classification” in that it “draws together philosophy, theology, hermeneutics, ethics, interfaith spiritual studies, legal studies, material culture studies, literary criticism, and media studies.” After reading The Accessorized Bible, readers may better understand the origins of this description. Dault’s new work speaks intricately but at times convolutedly about “how we treat each other” and how we need “to turn the analysis [of the Bible] back on ourselves, to name and examine—in a manner that is morally serious [his emphasis]—the ways in which our relationships to these objects lead us to things like bind up the broken (or not), welcome the stranger (or not), or kill the infidel (or not).” As a companion piece to his other new work, The Covert Magisterium, Dault here attempts to make a distinction between the Bible as bible—i.e., an object—and the Bible as Scripture to explore “the ethical implications of how we use scripture as an accessory, whether as an accessory to our fashion choices or as an accessory to our crimes and violence against one another.”

What can sometimes happen with books like The Accessorized Bible is that the goal, which is undeniably altruistic and rooted in faith, gets lost in the at-times confusing theoretical language used by the author. With Dault, who is no doubt a brilliant interdisciplinary academic, there is no exception, in that he uses such technical concepts as scriptural reasoning, the Iconic Books Project, and cultural materialism as contextual material to get to the crux of his argument: the need to ensure that the Bible is not being used as a weapon of choice by Christian fundamentalists who interpret the Gospel as a treatise for hate and intolerance.

The book is divided into two parts, the first providing the theoretical aspects of the above claim (“Context and Methods”), and the second providing four different theses that one can glean from the commentaries of the first part. Dault’s theses deduce that: 1) a bible is a book; 2) a bible is a platform; 3) a bible is a community; and 4) the Bible is an accessory. By following these truthful deductions, he makes “the objects we call bibles visible and clear” so that we do not “become vulnerable to idolatrous forces, to distractions masquerading as Truth, and gods masquerading as God.”

Dault occasionally employs passages from Scripture to help explicate his arguments, but more often crosses “disciplinary boundaries” by using theory, philosophy, and humanistic commentary from the likes of Franz Rosenzweig, Walter Benjamin, James Baldwin, Slavoj Žižek, Judith Butler, and others who understand that we need to follow a more materialistic view of the Bible than a deterministic view. As a strategy, every one of us “is and can be engaged in the process that shapes and moves culture in creative, unexpected directions,” he writes. He adds that this very real process can make all of us more apt to give birth (the term he uses is natality) to “new and unexpected situations and processes into the world,” a world that will always have tension and be tempted to deride the marginalized.

Natality, in other words, is about making changes—and, more importantly, about reforming our minds and our hearts. All of us have the ability to see Bibles as bibles, and not as accusatory objects with words that can be manipulated to ensure our selfish understanding of the world is the correct one. Bibles are not firepower and fodder for the justification of verbal and physical violence; they are objects meant to be used for secular and spiritual analysis to help us understand history and humanism in an ever-changing world.

The Bible is just a bible. Its words are not meant to scold or to promote hatred, intolerance, and division, and we cannot blame the Bible for these sins of the mind. The Accessorized Bible is a truthful text, and Dault’s heart is certainly in the right place (anyone who loves Steve Martin’s film Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid is good people in my book—he mentions his love for the film in one of his later chapters). However, a less academic commentary might have gotten his point across to a more general audience looking to make necessary changes to broken systems and discordant communities. ♦

Dr. Douglas C. MacLeod Jr. is an associate professor of composition and communication at SUNY Cobleskill. He has written multiple book chapters, peer-reviewed journal articles, and book reviews throughout his almost 20-year career as an academic and teacher. Recently, he has had essays published in Childhood and Innocence in American Culture: Heartaches and Nightmares (Lexington Books); Holocaust vs. Popular Culture: Interrogating Incompatibility and Universalization (Routledge); and Film as an Expression of Spirituality: The Arts and Faith Top 100 Films (Cambridge Scholars Publishing). He lives in Upstate New York with his wife, Patty.

Earlier this week, in preparation for our podcast interview with lifelong peacemaker Fr. John Dear, I revisited what was, for me, a formative text in my return to the church: Francine du Plessix Gray’s Divine Disobedience, a journalistic account of the Catholic antiwar movement of the 1960s. Gray profiles the Berrigan brothers, Ivan Illich, and others who, she writes, “have remained deeply dedicated to their faith while rebelling against the Church’s traditional structure and who, in the course of their rebellion, have also become some of the most militant critics and reformers of secular society.” Her introduction offers an important caveat:

I wish to make it clear, however, that my understanding of radicalism, both in its semantic and historical senses, implies a return to roots. The non-violent revolutionaries such as the men I write about wish to return to ancient ideological principles—be they principles of the Gospel or of the Constitution—which they feel have been sullied by time and by the blind obedience of docile majorities. In this sense the rebel heroes of this book are deeply traditional, deeply conservative men.

One of the figures she interviews is Fr. Lyle Young—an Australian priest who, with Fr. David Kirk, founded the Emmaus House of hospitality in Harlem in 1966. I had the opportunity to meet Fr. Lyle a few years before his passing in 2013 at a dinner hosted by a mutual friend. Over drinks he shared stories of those pivotal early years, and one detail in particular has always stayed with me: Describing his work in prison ministry and the special vocation of Emmaus House to receive the formerly incarcerated, he said that these were among some of the best people he had ever met, and who had taught him the most. This strikes me now as a distillation of the pastor’s task: to enter into the contested space of a life seen as past salvation and, through simple presence and openness to mutual transformation, elicit the goodness there. It is what the poet, potter, and educator M. C. Richards calls in her prose-poem-as-pedagogical-guide Centering “a capacity for self-surrender to the reality of another person,” or what Fr. Lyle’s colleague Fr. Kirk expressed in Gospel terms: “To be a Christian is to place yourself at the place of suffering. Where there is suffering, there is God.”

I say “the pastor’s task,” but it is really the province of all Christians, all those called to healing and whole-making in the footsteps of the Master. In Divine Disobedience, Fr. Lyle gave a clue as to how he arrived to a similar conclusion as a director of mission work in Port Moresby, New Guinea. “Much of my faith, and much of my understanding of what religion is about, I received from the faith of the native people I worked with in New Guinea,” he told Gray. “It is from them that I understood that the Church is, first and above all, the community of mankind, and not the community of the baptized.” For those of us who have internalized the language of Lumen Gentium about the church as the “people of God” to the point where it almost becomes rote, such a claim can feel at once a challenge and a liberation. For me it is a reminder not to lose touch with that original expansive vision of the church I had before I even returned: an instrument of international and even cosmic unity, a way of sanctifying and regulating time like the scansion of a poem does to language. As John Dear wisely told us in our interview, referencing his mentor Daniel Berrigan’s recollection of a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, “The church is the place you go from. It’s not the place you go to.”

Michael Centore
Editor, Tomorrow’s American Catholic

Daniel Horan is professor of philosophy, religious studies, and theology at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana. A columnist for the National Catholic Reporter, he is the author or editor of sixteen books, including Catholicity and Emerging Personhood: A Contemporary Theological Anthropology, A White Catholic’s Guide to Racism and Privilege, and The Way of the Franciscans: A Prayer Journey Through Lent.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Dan walks us through his spiritual autobiography and shares why he sees his decision to move on from ordained ministry “not as an end and a beginning, but a transition.” We explore the practice of writing as an act of discernment, look at how the “geographic perspective” of Pope Francis and Leo XIV has changed the tenor of the church, and discuss why the core of the Franciscan charism—to “see each other as the siblings that we are in God, and to recognize that that sibling connection extends beyond the human family to the more-than-human world”—is so vital to us today.

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Charles R. Gibson on creating a more just economy in line with the tenets of Catholic social teaching: “A basic principle of social justice is that the economy exists for the benefit of the people, not for the benefit of the state (as in Marxism) or for the benefit of the corporations, which is the case of unrestrained (or barely restrained) capitalism, wherein employers can treat their employees in almost any way they want to. Although corporations can have broad freedom in which to operate, their behavior is subject to the requirement to operate consistently with the common good, that is, to the benefit of society.”

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William Droel on the danger of revering organizational leaders: “When a pastor, community organizer, union official, or other group leader exhibits excessive fondness for attention, let it serve as a warning that the goal of social improvement is giving way to self-promotion. Social improvement needs those who project confident qualities that will attract and retain busy and creative followers. Yet the genuine change agent must stay out of the limelight and nurture the collective mission.”

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A charismatic leader can be important to a social improvement effort. The betterment will not last, however, if things devolve into a personality cult. The tragedy of Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) is a case study in the danger of a well-intentioned movement that allows a leader to become a quasi-divine, unaccountable force.

It is wrong to presume that farmworker unions did not exist until the saintly pioneer, Chavez, created the National Farm Workers Association in September 1962. Nor was it ever accurate to think that Chavez single-handedly brought the experience of Mexican Americans to national attention. In fact, the laborers initially involved in striking grape vineyards were Filipino Americans, not primarily Mexican Americans.

Further, Chavez was not a self-developed champion, as was once imagined. In the early 1960s two priests, Fr. Donald McDonnell (1923–2012) and Fr. Thomas McCullough (1922–1989), with the permission of their bishop, became missionaries-at-large to California’s poor. They came upon Chavez and instructed him in theology and agricultural issues. In the late 1940s, Saul Alinsky (1909–1972), founder of Chicago-based Industrial Areas Foundation, got involved with Mexican American homeowners in California. In 1953 he hired Fred Ross (1910–1992) as his West Coast director. Ross structured the groups as the Community Service Organization (CSO) and identified Chavez as a leader. Within a year, Alinsky hired him, too. After nearly a decade with CSO, Chavez turned his attention to farmworkers.

Larry Itliong (1913–1977), a Filipino American, preceded Chavez in farmworker organizing, and even he was not an originator. The United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing and Allied Workers (UCAPAW), affiliated with the CIO, was long active in the states of Washington, Alaska, and California. Itliong was involved with UCAPAW and in the 1940s he led strikes among asparagus pickers. In 1959 an Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) was formed in the merged AFL-CIO. In the summer of 1965, Itliong led a successful AWOC strike in the Coachella Valley, southeast of Los Angeles.

In September 1965, Itliong gathered hundreds of workers into Filipino Community Hall in Delano, California, for a vote to strike the area’s grape growers. It was a bold move, and Itliong realized he needed help. As is common with ethnic groups, Filipino Americans and Mexican Americans did not easily mingle in the community, plus the two groups competed for jobs. Yet Itliong approached Chavez to join in the strike. Until then, Chavez had spent his time talking with farmworkers but had yet to launch any job action. Chavez realized the opportunity and joined forces with the Filipino Americans. Thus began the now famous Delano Grape Strike and National Boycott. Four flags were prominent in the first demonstration: the US flag, of course, plus the flags of the Philippines and Mexico and the banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

In time the group’s named was changed to United Farm Workers Organizing Committee and then to United Farm Workers Union. Itliong served the new union, including as director of national boycotts. However, he was soon overshadowed by Chavez.

Reporter Jill Cowan recently spoke with Itliong’s relatives for New York Times. They and others say Itliong was muscled out of the way by Chavez and his loyalists. Aquilina Sariano of Pilipino Workers Center in Los Angeles draws the correct lesson from the disconcerting disclosures about Chavez: Society tends to “venerate individuals instead of the messy collectives who make change.” There is no need to swap Chavez’s name for another name on buildings and signs. The goal remains justice for workers.

Unlike Chavez, charismatic leaders do not normally engage in deviant behavior. Still, when a pastor, community organizer, union official, or other group leader exhibits excessive fondness for attention, let it serve as a warning that the goal of social improvement is giving way to self-promotion. Social improvement needs those who project confident qualities that will attract and retain busy and creative followers. Yet the genuine change agent must stay out of the limelight and nurture the collective mission. As Mirian Pawel concludes in her excellent biography, The Crusades of Cesar Chavez (Bloomsbury, 2014), “Loyalty to Chavez” superseded the development of farmworker leaders and the external mission of the organization. ♦

William Droel is editor at National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629).

From the time I was a young boy, I have had a visceral desire and passion for fairness and justice. This passion was intensified by my 11 years in the Jesuits, as I became increasingly aware of Jesus’s attitude toward wealth and the socioeconomic encyclicals of the magisterium, starting with Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 Rerum Novarum. I was blessed to obtain a PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968, specializing in economic development.

Starting in the 1980s, I saw and experienced a US Supreme Court and an economy structured to increasingly benefit the well-to-do, often at the expense of the less-than-well-to-do. This article outlines policies that I believe can reverse this trend and create a more equitable and just society in line with the tenets of Catholic social teaching.

Evidence of Growing Income and Wealth Inequality

The vast majority of Americans maintain the existing economy is not working for them. A Pew Research Center survey in September 2025 found that 74 percent of interviewees claimed that “economic conditions are only fair or poor,” while only 26 percent responded that “economic conditions are “excellent or good.”

The gap between the very well-to-do and most Americans has widened over the past 40 years, during both Republican and Democratic administrations. In 2024, the top 20 percent of households received 52 percent of all real income, up from 43.7 percent in 1970, while the lowest income group held only 3.1 percent, down from 4.1 percent in 1970. For lower-income households, 67 percent report living “paycheck to paycheck.”

The “American Dream” of owning one’s home is slipping away for many. According to the website Visual Capitalist, between 1995 and 2025, prices of houses increased 290 percent. Median housing prices for a two-bedroom house went from $82,800 in 1989 to $416,900 in 2025, an increase of 403 percent, while median household income increased from $23,620 in 1989 to $83,150 in 2025, an increase of 252 percent.

Union Membership

A basic principle of social justice is that the economy exists for the benefit of the people, not for the benefit of the state (as in Marxism) or for the benefit of the corporations, which is the case of unrestrained (or barely restrained) capitalism, wherein employers can treat their employees in almost any way they want to. Although corporations can have broad freedom in which to operate, their behavior is subject to the requirement to operate consistently with the common good, that is, to the benefit of society.

Growing income and wealth inequality has been accompanied by a decline in the percentage of union membership in the private (as opposed to the public) sector, from 34.2 percent in 1945 to 5.9 percent in 2024. Public-sector unionization has remained fairly stable over the last 40 years, fluctuating around 35 percent.

There has also been a steady decline of labor’s share of GDP (gross domestic product) compared to that of capital. In 1950, labor’s share of GDP was 62.8 percent; capital’s was 37.2 percent. In 2023, labor’s share had declined to 56.8 percent, while capital’s share had grown to 42.2 percent. In an economy that is working well, productivity and compensation are supposed to grow roughly equally. One explanation for this lack of equality is that starting around 1980, while labor’s contribution to growth in GDP was 1.4 percent, its compensation has only been 0.6 percent, less than half its contribution.

The Role of the Supreme Court in Growing Inequality

Recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) have been drivers of economic inequality. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (also known as the McCain-Feingold Act) imposed strict limits on how much one could contribute to a party or political candidate. This required transparency in donations. “Soft money”—that is, money raised or spent for the general promotion of a political party’s message—was prohibited, as were donations by corporations and unions.

This law was challenged by Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010. Five of the nine Supreme Court justices declared that parts of the McCain-Feingold Act were unconstitutional because they violated the free speech clause of the First Amendment. In other words, the government may not restrict political spending by corporations (or unions), and spending limits were invalidated. The result was huge increases in spending by wealthy donors. The perversity of the decision was that a human construct—a corporation—was put on the same level as a human person. The decision effectively removed people from deciding elections and let people with money effectively buy them. It made a representative democracy a plutocracy, rule by the rich.

In 2013, the decision in Shelby County v. Holder gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by invalidating section 5, which required state and local governments which had election laws that racially discriminated to obtain preclearance from the US Department of Justice before implementation of any changes to their voting laws or practices. By this decision, the Supreme Court further weakened the US commitment to equality of all Americans. This exacerbated economic inequality because racial minorities have a more difficult time, due to voter suppression, in electing candidates who represent their interests. With the near-obliteration of section 2 of the voting Rights Act in the April 2026 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, it was made even more difficult for people of color to be elected, because they could legitimately be gerrymandered out unless it could be shown that newly gerrymandered districts were blatantly motivated by racism.

Union-Busting

In spite of recent organizational activity, public support, and professed desire to belong to a union, the percentage of employees who are union members has declined from a high of 34.2 percent in 1945 to 9.9 percent in 2024. If we eliminate the union membership of the public sector—federal, state, and local government employees—at 32.2 percent, union membership in the private sector is around 5.9 percent of employees.

“Two intractable problems explain why union popularity, bargaining victories, and renewed labor activism haven’t translated into higher union density,” writes John Logan. He identifies these as “(1) disastrously weak labor laws and (2) ferocious corporate opposition to worker organizing.” Employers create a climate of fear and intimidation and wear down union supporters by stalling and delay tactics. Even if workers win a vote in an election sponsored by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), management files endless appeals such that the unions do not get their initial bargaining unit contract.

The NLRB does not have enforcement power. For enforcement it relies on the US federal court system, and therefore, is subject to the dilatory and other tactics of union-busters. Workers at Starbucks went over three years without a collective bargaining agreement, while those at Amazon went two years and nine months.

Other Factors of Economic Inequality

The last increase in in the minimum wage was in 2009, set at $7.25 per hour. The current minimum wage has one of its worst levels purchasing power since 1945; its greatest purchasing power was in the 1960s and early 1970s. The current federal minimum wage is a poverty wage. A number of states, counties, and cities have increased their minimum wage. A minimum wage of $15 would result in guaranteed annual income of around $27,660, for example.

Off-shoring of US jobs to other countries is another driver of inequality. It is estimated that 4.5 million US jobs have been lost through such “off-shoring” practices, with the manufacturing sector especially hard hit. Offshoring is abetted by the abuse of the H-1B visa program. The H-1B vasa was established to allow employers to hire foreign workers to fill jobs for which there were no Americans available. This provision has been poorly enforced.

Pay ratio is the ratio of total CEO compensation to the average (or median) worker’s pay. Total CEO compensation includes salary, bonuses, stock awards, and stock options. This ratio has ballooned since the 1980s. In 1965 CEOs made under 21 times the median compensation of the ordinary worker; in 2024, the ratio was a whopping 285 to 1. In 2024, when the median wage was $49,500 for all US workers, the average CEO took home $18.9 million.

Encouraging Unionization

One of the most effective ways to increase income and wealth equality is to enable and encourage unionization. An ordinary worker has no bargaining power with a large corporation regarding wages, benefits, and working conditions. The right to form and/or join a union is a civil right and a moral right.

In December 2025, private sector total compensation (wages/salaries and benefits) for union employees was $62.13 per hour compared to $44.78 for non-union employees, a difference of 41 percent. While the union employee base pay is always higher than that of the non-union employee, it is through benefits that the union employee is much better compensated.

To effectively counter the union-busting tactics employed by large corporations requires substantial improvement of the US’s very weak labor laws that these strong opponents of unionization break with impunity. This will require robust legislation and enforcement, the violation of which causes substantial economic and social pain to violators. It should be noted that the rights of labor to organize is fundamental to Catholic social teaching. Groups such as the Catholic Labor Network are reintroducing these resources to a new generation of Catholics and their allies.

Toward an Economy That Works for All

There are two types of corporate profit tax rates: the “nominal” rate, which had been 35 percent until Trump lowered it to 21 percent in 2020, and the “effective” rate, which is what corporations actually pay. From 1990 to 2000, the effective rate was around 30 percent; from 2020 to 2025, it fell to 12 percent. If the corporate profit nominal and effective rate was raised to 28 percent, it would yield over $1 trillion to be split between increased compensation of labor (which reduces the amount of corporate profits) and government.

In 2025 there were 902 billionaires in the US, holding approximately $6.8 trillion in wealth. There are 400 of the richest people in the US who have approximately $6.6 trillion in wealth. And in 2025 the wealthiest 400 increased their wealth by $1.2 trillion because of the surging stock market and AI. Given how the billionaires can influence public policy that make themselves even richer, and such influence hinders if not blocks the well-being of the vast majority of the population—think Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill”—it is appropriate to impose a “wealth tax” on billionaires.

The Supreme Court must restore spending limits on candidates and political parties. It is people who are supposed to elect their representatives, not money. People who have large amounts of money to, in effect, “buy” their representatives, enjoy unfair access and influence. From the standpoint of justice, no one person or small group should have such influence on public policy.

Other ways to create an economy that works or the vast majority of Americans include removing the abuse of the H-1B visas, applying a “transfer” fee of 10 to 20 percent on all stock buybacks, including workers’ representatives on corporate management committees, and imposing an annual wealth tax of 1 percent per billion dollars. If this tax were imposed on the $6.8 trillion of net assets of billionaires, it would raise $68 billion annually. ♦

Charles Gibson serves on the steering committee of Catholic Church Reform International. Interested readers can access the complete report from which this article is drawn here.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Dan walks us through his spiritual autobiography and shares why he sees his decision to move on from ordained ministry “not as an end and a beginning, but a transition.” We explore the practice of writing as an act of discernment, look at how the “geographic perspective” of Pope Francis and Leo XIV has changed the tenor of the church, and discuss why the core of the Franciscan charism—to “see each other as the siblings that we are in God, and to recognize that that sibling connection extends beyond the human family to the more-than-human world”—is so vital to us today. We also make time to review some of the issues and concerns around artificial intelligence developed in Magnifica Humanitas, and Dan offers a series of images to help us think through the idea of “catholicity” as a theological and ecclesiological framework.

See also:

Dan’s column at the National Catholic Reporter

The Francis Effect Podcast

“Yeast,” an essay by Walter Ong, SJ

James Butler’s review of J. D. Vance’s memoir of his conversion to Catholicism, Communion, in the August 13 issue of the London Review of Books gets at something inherent to Catholic integralism and Christian nationalism more broadly: the subservience of the faith to the needs of the state, a twisting of the mystery and demands of the gospel in order to produce a desired social outcome centered on worldly power. Butler writes:

Instrumentalism is a very common modern approach to religion: it matters as far as it makes me a better citizen, partner, member of society, or brings me pleasure or comfort. Some right-wing thinkers have revived the defence of faith as a ‘noble lie’. Is Christianity good because it is useful or because it is true?

Reading this passage brought to mind the well-known line from Dostoevsky’s letter to Natalia Fonvizina in 1854: “If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth.” How many of us might be prepared to make such a claim? For an opportunist like Vance, whose hopscotching from one ideological camp to the next depending on the appetites of his ambition is legendary, the Way of Christ can be subsumed into what Butler names “the social utility of faith as an institution.” This is Christianity reduced to a system, stripped of the paradoxes of the Beatitudes and the folly of the cross; it is like an exoskeleton over the body of Christ, or, to tweak the metaphor, a lattice of scaffolding covering the building of which he is the cornerstone.

Comparisons to ancient Rome abound these days, and it might be instructive to consider another reaction to the coupling of religion and state power in the early era of imperial Christianity: the flight of the monks and nuns to the Egyptian desert in the third and fourth centuries, resulting in the formation of ad hoc communities—we might think of them as “monastic republics”—whose membership was based on voluntary accession to the virtues “through which we give the kingdom of our heart […] to Christ,” in Saint John Cassian’s edifying phrase. There was nothing compulsory about the way of the desert, just a desire to grow nearer to God through the practice of charity, to reduce oneself and overcome the “lust for power and idle talk” that keep us in thrall to our own self-image.

Faith in such a space could not be instrumentalized; it was its own end, as virtue is its own reward. Whereas imperial religion coerces, puffs up, distorts, and controls, the praxis of the desert dwellers shows us a faith that liberates through prayer, repentance, simplicity of service, and attentiveness. In this it gradually unmasks the false self and all of its deceptions. We are left with the bare rudiment of Christianity as an encounter with a Person, not a system, retaining all the openness and flexibility such a living relationship requires—M.C.

Lynn Anamasi is a faith‑led advocate and community builder whose work bridges spirituality, justice, and service. She is a board member and the Charlotte chapter president of the SOAP Project, a national anti‑trafficking organization that equips volunteers and hotel staff to recognize the signs of human trafficking and identify missing children through labeled bars of soap and targeted outreach.

In this week’s episode of our podcast, Lynn shares with us her spiritual background, with a special focus on the impact of the Cursillo movement on the development of her faith. She discusses how she became involved with the SOAP Project along with the origins, mission, and outreach efforts of the organization. We look at why it is so important to raise awareness and correct misconceptions around the issue of human trafficking, and Lynn offers real-life examples to show how SOAP is educating the public and helping survivors to heal.

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Mark Piper on how two “anti-saints” provide guidance for a new stage of life: “Taken together, Lot’s Wife and Simon are buffers, keeping me out of the ditch as I follow the path of life. They remind me that even though the days are long, looking back ossifies my presence, and finding shortcuts wastes time; both inhibit human and spiritual growth. As the cliche goes, getting there isn’t half the fun, it’s all the fun. And so, in spite of the exhaustion, frustration, and chaos in this season of life, I will attempt to heed the directive that St. Paul gave to the Romans: rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, and persevere in prayer.”

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Sr. Lou Ella Hickman on praying with film: “Even when they are no longer shiny and new, films, like other forms of literature, can age well in terms of appreciation. Time creates a kind of distance, a reframing of the film’s storyline due to changes in cultural perspectives. As such, movie night can become a source of spiritual growth and nourishment both for an individual well as a family. Watching an older film can be especially impactful when it coincides with a liturgical season.”

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I confess to you, my brothers and sisters, that I am sojourning with two anti-saints in this “Messy Middle” of life. Having recently turned 38, with children on the cusp of their ninth and twelfth birthdays, I find one companion urging me to look back while the other whispers that there must be a faster way to a less stressful future. Between them, they conspire to pull my attention away from the only place where life can actually be lived: the chaotic present.

Brian Preston of The Money Guy podcast calls this stage of life “the Messy Middle”: the years between young adulthood and middle age, when responsibilities multiply faster than time and money and you are stretched in every direction. Careers advance, children arrive, mortgages are signed, parents begin to age, and community obligations accumulate. Unlike the seasons of the year, the Messy Middle is all four seasons all at once—think Katy Perry’s “Hot N’ Cold” on repeat, every hour of every day.

When I look at the calendar on my phone, each day is more color-coded than a Christmas tree; I cannot recall how long I have told myself that it will start to get better next week. But next week has never arrived. Each day I am a living sacrifice to those appointments, meetings, practices, and games. I do not know if my two companions found me, or if I found them, but when the calendar’s chaos and ubiquitous overwhelm arrive, so do Lot’s wife and Simon the Magician.

I have an affinity for Lot’s wife—she is best described as salt of the earth (Dad jokes are age appropriate for Millennials now, and those in the Messy Middle). Perhaps you know her? She is leaving behind her former life in Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19), an angel instructed her not to look back, but she does, and there she remains, as a pillar of salt. Walking into the unknown can be scary and feel like a risk, but here in the Messy Middle we know that it is even riskier to turn back. The past bears fruit in our memories and in the lives we now inhabit. But as nostalgia, that fruit never ripens. You cannot live in memories no matter how comforting. My children are about to be nine and twelve, and I have to love them as they are today, not as they were six years ago. Likewise, at 38 I can no longer hold myself to the standards of energy and stamina I had at 28 or 18. After physical therapy for lower back pain, the temptation to gaze backwards and not move forward, the temptation to preserve my life as it was rather than let it go is lessened because I really do not want to twist my neck, back, or anything else that would now lead to days of pain and physical therapy.

Simon, too, is someone I could grab a beer with, even though beer now adds to my “Dad bod.” In Acts 8, we learn that Simon used to practice magic. Like many parents, I used to practice magic, too. No rabbits out of a hat. I simply had the superpower to make time for anyone, and I could make believe with my kids. Years ago I could tape cardboard toilet paper rolls together, call them unicorn binoculars, and take the kids to the forest preserve to go unicorn hunting. Alas, we don’t have time for that any more, and even if we did, the fledgling sarcasm my eldest has developed would likely come into full bloom. Eye rolls and all.

Knowing this, Simon tempts me in the opposite direction of Lot’s wife. He observed the apostles conferring the Holy Spirit on those around him; he was impatient and thought it a magic trick. So he offered them money thinking they could cut to the chase and let him in on their trick. No waiting places or dithering in liminal spaces for Simon. Just get to the point. In like manner, if only I could skip to the good part, the calm place, and move puberty along for my kids so the years of body odor and awkwardness are compressed and over. He was rebuked, harshly, for trying to buy the offices or gifts of God. The gifts of God cannot be bought. Time with family is a gift; peace and tranquility are gifts from God I seek. But, in the Messy Middle, peace and tranquility are hard to come by. It’s a reminder, especially when this sojourn of mine winds through a desert place and my faith wanes, there really is the chronos time we all live in and, simultaneously, God’s time, kairos. It is frustrating that I cannot speed up that which I dislike, or slow down that which I want to savor. I’ve just got to live through it, chronos and kairos both, and trust the right things will happen when they ought to happen.

Taken together, Lot’s Wife and Simon are buffers, keeping me out of the ditch as I follow the path of life. They remind me that even though the days are long, looking back ossifies my presence, and finding shortcuts wastes time; both inhibit human and spiritual growth. As the cliche goes, getting there isn’t half the fun, it’s all the fun. And so, in spite of the exhaustion, frustration, and chaos in this season of life, I will attempt to heed the directive that St. Paul gave to the Romans: rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, and persevere in prayer. So, pray for me, please! My anti-saints continue to accompany me. One whispers to look back. The other urges me to cut ahead. I suspect holiness lies somewhere between them—in the only moment God has actually given me: this one. ♦

Mark Piper resides in Chicago with his family and holds a master's in leadership and policy studies from DePaul University and a bachelor's from St. Xavier University. He is the author of Interrupted Presence: Eleven Stories of Finding God in Times of Trouble (ACTA Publications, 2021).

Lynn’s commitment to mercy and justice is also shaped by her relationship with the Sisters of Mercy, with whom she is an Associate. Their charism of compassion, courage, and service to the most vulnerable continues to guide her advocacy and her leadership within SOAP.

In this episode, Lynn shares with us her spiritual background, with a special focus on the impact of the Cursillo movement on the development of her faith. She discusses how she became involved with the SOAP Project along with the origins, mission, and outreach efforts of the organization. We look at why it is so important to raise awareness and correct misconceptions around the issue of human trafficking, and Lynn offers real-life examples to show how SOAP is educating the public and helping survivors to heal.

See also:

The SOAP Project official website

National Cursillo USA

“More Than Soap—It’s a Lifeline,” article on Lynn’s involvement in the SOAP Project for the website of the Sisters of Mercy

“We Need to Protect Each Other,” Tomorrow’s American Catholic podcast with Sr. Leonida Katunge for the International Day of Prayer and Awareness against Human Trafficking, February 8, 2026

“Pastoral Orientations on Human Trafficking,” 2019 Vatican document published by the Migrants and Refugees Section of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development

Even when they are no longer shiny and new, films, like other forms of literature, can age well in terms of appreciation. Time creates a kind of distance, a reframing of the film’s storyline due to changes in cultural perspectives. As such, movie night can become a source of spiritual growth and nourishment both for an individual well as a family. Watching an older film can be especially impactful when it coincides with a liturgical season.

St. Ignatius of Loyola proposed what he called contemplative prayer with the Scriptures, which can be applied to a film meditation. This method can help a person engage with a film better when one identifies with a character and how that person might have felt.

If you are interested in using St. Ignatius’s prayer method to enrich your response to a film, consider incorporating these suggestions. First, set aside ample time for reflection. Second, read a synopsis of the film before you watch it. This will give you an overview of the plotline, thus making it easier to follow. Third, when you do pray, ask for the grace to see what God wants you to see. As the movie unfolds, be aware of the one or two characters that stand out for you. After the movie ends, sit with your character. Ask yourself: What is God saying to me through this character? Continue to sit for the allotted time. When you are finished, thank God for time you spent in his presence and for any insights you may have received.

I have included two alternative prayer methods for the recommended films below: suggested intercessory prayers for two of the films, and questions and comments for meditation. For viewing, check YouTube or other streaming services or your local library for a copy.

Advent

The Thanksgiving Visitor (1986) 45 mins | NR

Focus on the scene where Buddy accuses Odd Henderson of stealing a cameo. What were the consequences? Fast forward 15 years. How has Buddy dealt with his decision? What happened to Odd Henderson? Change the age of the characters where both are adults in this scene. How does this change the storyline?

Suggestions for intercessory prayer

• You instituted the Eucharist at a meal. Help us to experience the holiness of ordinary meals. Grant that families who come together at Thanksgiving and Christmas may grow in their love for one another.

• Heal families divided by anger, fear, and misunderstanding.

• May Advent be a time for us to grow in awareness that justice is more than mere laws but right relationship.

• Help me live the words from the book of Wisdom, “Those who are just must be kind” (12:13-19).

• Add your own intentions.

Christmas

The Rise of the Guardians (2012) 1:37 | PG

Perhaps the greatest sadness for too many adults is that they forget what it felt like to be a child. And perhaps the greatest tragedy of poverty for children is the death of their being able to dream. This death is soul killing: the death of initiative and possibility. How does the storyline of the children and the Guardians facing the darkness of the evil spirit, Pitch, develop Jesus’s statement, “Unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of God?” (Matt 18:3)

Read a short bio of St. Ignatius of Loyola. How did his dreams and imagination help bring about his conversion?

While the plot of this film is Christmas-themed for children, it can be watched any time during the year. During the 40 days of the Easter season or throughout Ordinary Time, viewers might ask how Jesus still overcomes the darkness of death and sin, or consider a “Christmas in July” project for children in need.

Ratatouille (2007) 1:51 | G

Even though this Oscar-winning movie does not have seasonal theme as part of the storyline, it could be used around Christmas or during any part of the liturgical year. This film is also aimed at a children’s audience. However, it has been my experience that many children’s movies have a hidden layer that can speak to adults when seen through the eyes of faith.

The two main characters are unlikely heroes. What makes a hero a hero? For most people it is courage in the face of danger. However, this movie reveals that courage means to follow the deepest longing of one’s heart. It also shows how powerful the memory of “comfort” food is—a symbol of the Eucharist. “Do this in memory of me.” To remember is to make present again, which we do during the Mass.

Ordinary Time After Epiphany and Lent/Pentecost

The Help (2011) 2:26 | PG-13

The gospels have many stories about those who are insiders and those who are outsiders. In fact, the words and phrases distance, far away, and near can refer to those groups. The Gospel of Luke is often called the “gospel of mercy,” as Luke has recorded several parables that highlight God’s mercy, especially for the outsider; for example, the story of the Prodigal Son (15:11-32).

This movie’s plot revolves around storytelling—telling the story of those lives who are on the margins. Jesus said to invite the lame and the blind to your banquets for they cannot thank you (Luke 14:13-23). What would taking up this exhortation look like in your life? Maya Angelou, the great American poet, once wrote, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

Note what happens at tables throughout the movie. What scenes are similar, and what scenes contrast each other? Which of these scenes reflect or symbolize the Eucharist?

Sister Act (1992) 1:40 | PG

When this movie was first released, there was a backlash of criticism concerning the way a religious sister was portrayed. Years later I was part of my community’s vocation retreat for young women, and the movie was on the schedule. We all laughed from beginning to end.

The movie’s plotline shows how the power of community can be the source of personal transformation. Consider the scene where Sr. Mary Clarence is introduced to the community. The sisters are seated at a meal and she is asked to say grace, which she stammers through. At best, we all stammer in our efforts to love others, and often when we try to pray. St. Paul reminds us that the Holy Spirit speaks on our behalf when we pray. As a trained spiritual director, I have listened to all my directees as they stammer in their efforts to express their experiences in praying and how they relate to God. I can empathize, as I know well my own stuttering efforts to talk about my own prayer life and my relationship with God to my spiritual director.

As part of your prayer time with this film, you might reflect on finding a director for yourself. If you are interested, check out the organization Spiritual Directors International. Their website has a list of directors you can contact.

The Perfect Storm (2000) 2:10 | PG-13

This film is based on a true story. It might inspire us to ask: How do I make a major decision? What helps me to make decisions well?

Reflect on ways to improve your decision-making: When I do decide, I know I made the best choice I could have made with the information I had at the time. How was God still with me during the aftermath of a poorly made decision?

Suggestions for intercessory prayer

• For those who must make life-and-death decisions.

• For those who are discerning their vocation.

• For all maritime workers.

• For all parents as they teach their children how to make wise decisions.

• Add your own intentions.

As I mentioned in my introduction, many films age like fine wine. I hope you will consider this article as an invitation to watch (or rewatch) a film with the eyes of faith. After all, the word respect originally meant “to look again.” ♦

Sr. Lou Ella Hickman is a widely published poet and a member of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament of Corpus Christi, Texas. Her poetry collection she: robed and wordless was published in 2015 as a Tom Lombardo Poetry Selection, an imprint of Press 53. Her second collection, Writing the Stars, was published in 2024 by Press 53.

“O Clare, endowed with so many titles of clarity!” effused Pope Alexander IV in a bull of canonization for Clare of Assisi issued in 1255. He named these titles as they revealed themselves through the various stages of her spiritual life: “Clear even before your conversion, clearer in your manner of living, exceedingly clear in your cloistered life, and brilliant in splendor after the course of your mortal life.”

Clare’s feast on August 11 prompted thought and reflection on this companion of Francis and co-foundress of the Poor Clares, the Franciscan order of nuns that follows Clare’s monastic Rule—the first such Rule known to be written by a woman. In honor of her feast, we’ve been presenting throughout the week prayers, reflections, and historical accounts of her charisms of clarity and holy poverty, her “mirroring” of Christ in such a way as Thomas Merton would describe 700 years later: “Christ in us must be liberated, by purification, so that the ‘image’ in us, clothed anew with light of the divine likeness, is able connaturally to recognize the same likeness in another, the same tendency to love, to simplicity, to unity.”

As I’ve had the privilege of reading through these pieces, it is this image of clarity that keeps coming up for me: the clarity of the familiar metaphor, sourced from Saint John of the Cross, of the soul as a window translucent to the light of God; or of Aquinas’s claritas, the inward luminosity that he defined as one of the three aspects of beauty along with integritas (wholeness) and consonatia (harmony). It is the clarity of the cool-running stream that holds our reflection still even as it flows imperceptibly past, much as Clare’s mirror of Christ centers us within the movement of time—Ed.

Inspiration from our friends at the Franciscan Action Network: “Centuries before modern democracy took hold, Clare built a thriving community grounded in social equality and shared leadership. Today, as we take loving action in the world rooted in the gospel and the Franciscan tradition, may we draw inspiration from St. Clare’s fearless leadership, radical commitment to equal dignity, and enduring vision of a democratic, compassionate community.”

Read more »

Ilia Delio, OSF, on how Clare “saw the poverty of God as a fountain—a love that brings us into being, sustains us, and yearns for us”: “If God’s own life is a ceaseless self-emptying, a pouring out of love that holds nothing back, then to become poor is simply to become like God. When someone asked how we center ourselves in the love of God, Clare’s answer was disarmingly simple: become poor. Poverty is not primarily the absence of possessions, for Clare. It is dependence—the willingness to need others, to let go of our stubborn insistence on independence and control.”

Read more »

Patrick Carolan traces the history of Clare’s spiritual development: “Clare understood that God is not an abstract concept but a living reality of love. She believed that transformation into our Christ-nature is expressed in the language of imitation: ‘We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become,’ she wrote. ‘If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing. Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ, rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation. This means we are to become vessels of God’s compassionate love for others.’”

Read more »

The latest episode of Flipping the Tables, a podcast about Catholics working for peace and justice hosted by journalist, activist, and author Colleen Shaddox, is now available. Colleen interviews James Robinson about his new book, Beyond Factory Farming: A Contemplative-Prophetic Approach to Food (Orbis Books). A perfect listen for this week of Saint Clare, with Franciscan observations on the sacramentality of creation interspersed throughout. Robinson is director of the Deignan Institute for Earth and Spirit at Iona University.

And stay tuned for upcoming episodes of our Tomorrow’s American Catholic podcast, including interviews with author, theologian, and columnist Dan Horan; Lynn Anamasi of the SOAP Project, an organization dedicated to preventing human trafficking; and author and expert on the women’s diaconate, Phyllis Zagano. Also, a nice milestone to share: our episode with Fr. Carl Arico became our first to surpass 1,000 downloads! Thanks to Fr. Carl and to all of our guests who have helped us dream of “tomorrow’s American Catholic” together.

A reminder that Br. Mark D’Alessio is leading the annual Mary Oliver retreat at Wisdom House (229 E Litchfield Rd, Litchfield, CT 06759) on August 22 from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET. Cost is $85, with lunch included. To register, click here. For information about overnight accommodations, call Wisdom House at (860) 567-3163.

Br. Mark has also announced two additional retreats coming up this autumn: “The Birth of Wonder and the Science of Awe” will be held from Friday, September 18 to Sunday, September 20 at Mercy by the Sea Retreat Center (167 Neck Road, Madison CT 06443). This contemplative weekend explores “awe” and “wonder” as gateways to spiritual awakening, healing and meaning. Drawing from mystics, depth psychology, and neuroscience, participants will discover how wonder can deepen empathy, calm the nervous system, and reconnect us with the mystery of life through meditation, reflection, and contemplative practice. Further information, including registration and overnight accommodations, is available here.

In October, Br. Mark will offer an online book study and contemplative practice journey, “Walking the Beauty Way: Indigenous Native American Wisdom and Franciscan Contemplation,” hosted from Mercy by the Sea. Participants will read and reflect together on selections from Rev. Randy Woodley’s book Becoming Rooted, engaging its teachings in community through dialogue, meditation and lived spiritual practice. The group will meet on the evenings of October 15, 22, and 29 from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. ET. Further information and registration is available here.

We remember Clare of Assisi too often as a shadow of Francis—the woman who followed, the quieter echo of a louder saint. But Clare was no follower. She was a formidable, resolute, and profoundly loving mystic whose life turned on a single, radiant conviction: that Christ dwells in each of us, and that our whole vocation is to let God live within us and shine back the face of Christ to the world. To understand Clare, we have to begin where she began—not with poverty as deprivation, but with the Incarnation as love made visible.

Clare’s spirituality is thoroughly centered on Christ, and specifically on the astonishing fact of the Incarnation. God did not remain remote and self-sufficient. God took on human flesh—not merely to suffer and die for us, but to draw us into a life so intimate that we could reflect that same divine love outward to everyone we meet. This is the heart of the matter. When we gaze on the crucified Christ, Clare invites us to see two things at once: the depth of God’s self-giving, and the truth of our own humanity. To contemplate Christ’s flesh is to discover what we are and what we are called to become. The Incarnation is not a doctrine to be admired from a distance; it is a mirror held up to the human person.

Here is where Clare becomes genuinely radical. Born into nobility in 1194, she gave up a world of privilege for a world of destitution—and was happy. That happiness makes no sense unless we understand that her poverty was never about scarcity. It was about love. Clare saw the poverty of God as a fountain—a love that brings us into being, sustains us, and yearns for us. If God’s own life is a ceaseless self-emptying, a pouring out of love that holds nothing back, then to become poor is simply to become like God. When someone asked how we center ourselves in the love of God, Clare’s answer was disarmingly simple: become poor. Poverty is not primarily the absence of possessions, for Clare. It is dependence—the willingness to need others, to let go of our stubborn insistence on independence and control. When we grasp at self-sufficiency, we close ourselves off. When we choose poverty, we open a door, and God’s goodness comes shining through the people around us. Poverty, in this vision, is the condition for communion. It is how love gets in. This is the same movement we see in the Incarnation itself: a God who chooses dependence, who becomes small and vulnerable, who enters the world needing to be held. Clare’s poverty is nothing other than her participation in that self-emptying love. The manger and the empty cell tell the same story.

Clare’s mysticism was never a retreat from the world. For forty-two years she lived in the enclosure of San Damiano, and from that hidden place she extended herself outward. Her contemplation of the crucified Christ was a longing to be transformed into him—and transformation always spills over into action. It led her to wash the feet of her sisters, to serve, to love concretely. There is a costliness to this. If we truly see the depths of God revealed in a person or a creature that others might discard, reject, or ignore, then we cannot look away unmoved. Seeing becomes loving, and loving has consequences. We may be excluded, misunderstood, even rejected. But once we have really seen, reverence for every person becomes instinctive. Contemplation, inflamed by love, is the ground of a discipleship that costs us something—and that is exactly what makes it real.

Clare wrote her own Rule of Life—the first monastic rule known to be written by a woman—and shaped a way of life built on strength, clarity, and a fierce, unapologetic movement toward God. Hers was a “light and swift” journey, undeterred by earthly weight. Though she belongs to a distant medieval past, her question is entirely ours: how do we live as though Christ truly dwells in us and in everyone we meet? Her answer runs against every instinct of a culture built on accumulation and control. Become poor. Become dependent. Let God’s goodness flow through you. Reflect back the face of Christ to a world that badly needs to see it. That is the heart full of love that Clare offers us—a heart emptied of everything except the One who fills it. ♦

Author of over twenty-five books, Ilia Delio, OSF, PhD, is a Franciscan Sister of Washington, DC, and professor at Villanova University. She is the founder and executive director of the World Institute for Science, Religion and Culture, an online educational forum focused on integrative thinking and personal formation.

The woman we now know as Saint Clare was born Chiara Offreduccio in Assisi in July 1194. Both of her parents were descended from nobility: her father, Favarone de Offreduccio, from an ancient Roman family; and her mother, Ortolana, from the noble family of Fiumi.

When Clare was a young girl, conflict broke out between the wealthy noble class and the poor merchant class. The merchant class rebelled and drove the noble class out of Assisi. Clare’s family fled to Perugia, which was a sworn enemy of Assisi. There, with other noble families, they spent several years planning to go to war with Assisi so that they could reclaim their homes. In 1207, Perugia and her allies soundly defeated the Assisians at the Battle of Callostarda. This was the same battle that Clare’s future collaborator Francis participated in, setting out to win glory and knighthood by fighting with the army from Assisi. As we know, he failed miserably in this venture and spent a year in a prison cell in Perugia until his father paid his ransom.

Despite her family’s great wealth, Ortolana remained a devout Catholic woman. She made several pilgrimages to the Holy Land and other shrines, would often spend time helping the poor and hungry, and was known to visit and pray with prisoners. Ortolana would have most likely have known Francis’s father Pietro di Bernardone, and it is possible that she could have visited Francis during his year in prison.

Because of her privileged upbringing and was considered to be very attractive, Clare would have had many suitors. However, as was customary for the time, she would have had no say as to when or to whom she was to be married. Her father would have selected a suitor based on his family’s wealth and standing in the community, then arrangements would have been negotiated and the marriage contracted. When Clare was twelve years old, her parents arranged for her to marry a very wealthy young man. In perhaps her first act of defiance against the patriarchy, she refused. She asked her parents if she could wait until she was eighteen to marry.

Clare grew up in a household of holy women, including her mother and her sisters. With her devout Catholicism, Ortolana would have raised her daughters to be not only pious and prayerful but also to care for the poor and the sick. It has been suggested that when Clare’s mother was pregnant, she sensed that there was something wrong, so she went off to pray. While praying, she had a vision in which she heard the words: “O lady, do not be afraid, for you will joyfully bring forth a clear light that will illuminate the world.” In Italian the word for clear is chiara or “Clare”; when the child was born, her mother chose this for her name.

As a teenager, Clare would have heard Francis preaching around Assisi. She would have known that he was the son of the wealthy merchant who gave up everything to live a life of prayer and poverty. Clare became intrigued by what Francis was preaching and wanted to learn more.

At this period in time, young women, especially those of noble birth, were carefully watched by their parents and had little to no voice in their futures. They were either married off to the sons of other noble families or shipped to cloistered convents to spend their lives in penance and prayer. Clare knew that she was soon to turn eighteen and that her father was making arrangements for her to be married off to the son of a rich nobleman. But she had other ideas about her future.

Clare’s cousin Ruffino was one of the first followers of Saint Francis. In 1212, Clare sent word through Rufino that she wanted to meet Francis. This was three years after Francis had received approval from Pope Innocent III to build his religious order. The Franciscan movement was expanding rapidly across Italy and southern Europe, but only men were allowed to join. So, when Francis received word that Clare wanted to meet with him, we can imagine that had no idea what to expect. Perhaps he thought that this young woman wanted to financially support his growing movement.

The two of them met secretly several times. At first Francis tried to convince Clare that she should join one of the cloistered religious orders nearby. But Clare would have none of this. On Palm Sunday, she joined Francis and his followers at San Damiano. A few weeks later, her younger sister, Agnes, joined her. They spent several months living with a community of Benedictine sisters while the brothers rebuilt the living space at San Damiano. The women returned to San Damiano, where together they founded the Order of Poor Ladies, which later became known as the Poor Clares. It was the first order of Franciscan women.

In a time when women, especially women religious, were expected to be under the dominion of men, women’s religious orders had to organize under the direction of a priest or bishop. Clare felt that women should not just be cloistered away praying, but should be out in the world caring for the sick and feeding the hungry. It was also the practice of the time for the Rule of an order to be written by a man and approved by the pope. In a radical departure from this tradition, Clare wrote her own Rule with input from her sisters. The Rule was based on what Francis had developed for men, but with a better understanding of the unique role of women in the religious life.

While acknowledging the authority of the papacy, Clare’s Rule rejected the idea that an order of women religious should fall under the auspices of a man. Pope Innocent III did not accept Clare’s Rule. In 1217, following Innocent’s death, Pope Honorius III had Cardinal Hugolino of Ostia write a Rule for Clare and her sisters. Clare ignored this Rule and the community continued to live by the original Rule they had written. In 1247, Pope Innocent IV had another Rule written for the order. Clare and her sisters again rejected this Rule. It was not until 1253, two days before she died, that Pope Innocent IV approved her original Rule. Clare thereby became the first woman religious to write and receive approval for a Rule for women religious.

During the Middle Ages, there were a number of theologies to explain the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus and the purpose of the incarnation. Some were centered on the idea that the incarnation was connected to sin: because of sin, there needed to be some form of atonement. Different expressions of atonement included ransom, redemption, propitiation, and substitution. The first of these was developed by the second-century bishop Irenaeus of Lyons, who advanced the recapitulation theory of the atonement. Others like Anslem and Augustine believed that because man had sinned, God had to “make a deal” with Satan to free our souls. The idea was born that God had to pay a “ransom” so that humans could advance to heaven.

All of these theologies agreed that the main purpose of the incarnation was for the Son of God to be eventually sacrificed on the cross. But Francis and Clare believed that the incarnation had nothing to do with changing God’s mind about humanity, as Richard Rohr might say, but rather with changing humanity’s mind about God. They didn’t believe that the birth of Jesus was a simple historical event, or that the incarnation was somehow connected to sin. As the thirteenth-century Franciscan theologian Blessed John Don Scotus explained:

The Incarnation of the Son of God is the very reason for the whole Creation. To think that God would have given up such a task had Adam not sinned would be quite unreasonable! I say, therefore, that the fall was not the cause of Christ’s predestination and that if no one had fallen, neither the angel nor man in this hypothesis Christ would still have been predestined in the same way.

Francis and Clare didn’t believe that God was some being sitting on a throne in the sky judging humanity, in other words; they believed that God was in each and every one of us and in all of creation.

When talking about the spiritual life, Clare would often use the image of a mirror. In her third letter to Agnes, she wrote:

Place your mind before the mirror of eternity!
Place your soul in the brilliance of glory!
Place your heart in the figure of the divine substance!
And transform your whole being
into the image of the Godhead Itself through contemplation!
So that you too may feel what His friends feel as they taste the hidden sweetness
Which God Himself has reserved from the beginning
for those who love Him.

For Clare, contemplation is not just an intellectual exercise, but a transformative indwelling in love. As Sr. Ilia Delio writes in her book Clare of Assisi: “What Clare suggests is that contemplation is not a preliminary step to transformation or imitation but rather that we must drive to be transformed in Christ in order to contemplate the truth of Christ contemplation deepens as we continue to be transformed in Christ by becoming the truth of who we are in God.”

Clare understood that God is not an abstract concept but a living reality of love. She believed that transformation into our Christ-nature is expressed in the language of imitation: “We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become,” she wrote. “If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing. Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ, rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation. This means we are to become vessels of God’s compassionate love for others.”

Clare also understood that the incarnation is an expression of God’s love. Jesus didn’t come so that we could worship him; the incarnation, rather, was about showing us how to be Christ. Clare teaches us to be “mirrors” of Christ: If I look at you, she says, I should see Christ, and if you look at me, you should see Christ. If we are not seeing Christ in each other and in every part of creation, we are not following the message of Jesus. Like Francis, Clare believed that in order to be in right relationship with God, we have to first be in right relationship with all creation. Clare taught that to follow Christ, we must see ourselves in the faces of our suffering brothers and sisters. In them, we should see the suffering Christ on the cross. Do we really see the suffering Christ, or do we merely pass by and let Christ continue to hang on the cross?

Today the movement of Franciscan women that Saint Clare founded with her sister Agnes has grown to more than 400 different congregations of approximately 60,000 women. They are active in most countries. They are involved in the work of peace and caring for the poor and sick. They have established schools and medical facilities. They are presidents of universities and hospitals. They stand in solidarity with the poor, the hungry, the migrants, and the sick. They do so in the spirit of Saint Clare. When they see suffering, they see Christ on the cross. And like Saint Clare, they become mirrors of Christ. ♦

Patrick Carolan is a co-facilitator of the Tomorrow’s American Catholic podcast.

As happens each July for the past 142 years, a large Marian observance was held at the Pontifical Shrine for Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in New York City. The church, located on 116th Street between First Avenue and FDR Drive, schedules extra novenas, rosaries, individual prayer opportunities, and a major procession. The original parishioners at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel were immigrants from Italy. Today there are services in Spanish and Polish. Other nationalities are represented during the feast: Haitian, Mexican, the Dominican Republic, Irish, and more. It is a great feast of diversity as well as solidarity.

A committee at our neighborhood parish in Chicago recently arranged a weeklong display of a traveling painting of Our Blessed Lady. A prayer service took place each evening. Because of the display, people drifted into the church each afternoon to pray and lingered around the painting after each weekend Mass. All for the good. The painting was scheduled to move to another church on Monday morning.

A pulpit announcement on Sunday drifted close to the objectionable side of devotions: “Join us this evening as we say goodbye to Mary.” Critics of our Catholic devotions might say that the casual “goodbye to Mary” confused the painting with Mary herself. Further, they insist, neither Mary nor images of her should be worshiped.

Statues, icons, shrines, religious paintings, and the like will always be found in Catholicism. They serve as reminders, disposing Catholics to attend to God’s grace in their lives. Most Catholics understand that devotions are not worship. The saints are heavenly role models, and images of them are reminders of holiness. Nonetheless, caution is necessary.

Catholic devotions, particularly those centered on Our Blessed Lady, can divert attention from the unique saving action of Jesus Christ. They can foster superstition because people expect guaranteed outcomes (usually healing) from participation in the devotion. They can devolve into idolatry when people presume that statues and other images in themselves contain divine power. The temptation to regard saints and even their images as quasi-divine is serious enough that in November 2025 Pope Leo XIV warned against the careless use of some titles for Mary, including co-redemptrix and mediatrix.

For the record, no Catholic is obliged to participate in any devotion. This especially needs to be clear to those coming into Catholicism from another denomination. All Catholics find unity around dogma, Scripture, and worship. Devotions can be helpful, but always optional.

The Catholic devotions of Benediction and Eucharistic procession do not detract from Christ, our Redeemer. Rather, they reinforce the unique and full presence of Jesus. They accentuate devotion to Our Lord. Yet even with these Christ-centered devotions, caution is warranted. Catholics should not turn the incarnate Jesus, the bread of the world, into a private possession. This danger is more likely to occur with Benediction than with an outdoor Eucharistic procession.

While visiting Spain on the feast of Corpus Christi last June, Pope Leo participated in a Eucharistic procession. This devotion began in the late 11th century as a corrective to denials of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. In due time, Pope Urban IV (1195–1264) introduced an annual Feast of Corpus Christi on which many churches, then and now, have processions. In addition to the dogma of the Real Presence, this devotion is a reminder that God is present in the world through faithful people who act responsibly around the home, in the neighborhood and on the job.

During the June procession, Leo displayed the Eucharist in an ornate monstrance. It was commissioned by King Philip II (1527–1598) of Spain. It now belongs to and is treasured by Madrid city council. Leo offered this caution about the Eucharistic procession and about devotions in general: Devotions are “not merely a matter of bringing out the monstrance, but of allowing ourselves to be brought out of our selfishness and indifference, [out] of a comfortable private faith, so as to respond to [Jesus’s] invitation to conversation and to . . . make us builders of a new world.” ♦

William Droel is editor at National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629). He writes: “For more on the Shrine for Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in NYC, try The Madonna of 115th Street by Robert Orsi (Yale University Press, 1985). It is a classic study of a major devotion.”

This reflection and prayer were originally published in the Franciscan Action Network (FAN) newsletter. Many thanks to authors Michele Dunne and Claire Fisher for allowing us to reproduce them here—Ed.

On this Feast of St. Clare (August 11), we honor a beloved saint well known for her life of deep prayer, fidelity to the tradition established by St. Francis, and steadfast commitment to voluntary poverty. St. Clare was the first woman to write a rule for her own community and have it approved by the pope, just before her death in 1253.

But did you know that St. Clare was also a social revolutionary? Her first revolutionary act was to leave the aristocracy within the walled city of Assisi to join the movement outside the walls led by Francis (who, as a son of the merchant class, was her social inferior). Later, when other women joined Clare at San Damiano, she wrote a Form of Life for the community that was radically egalitarian in the context of 13th-century Europe and remains inspirational today. St. Clare gave all sisters an equal voice in decisions for the community regardless of social class, education, or seniority, “for the Lord frequently reveals what is best to the least among us.”

Centuries before modern democracy took hold, Clare built a thriving community grounded in social equality and shared leadership. Today, as we take loving action in the world rooted in the gospel and the Franciscan tradition, may we draw inspiration from St. Clare’s fearless leadership, radical commitment to equal dignity, and enduring vision of a democratic, compassionate community. Please join us in praying the prayer below.

A Prayer & Pledge for the Feast of Saint Clare

I lift my heart to You, O God, on this Feast of St. Clare.

Inspired by Clare’s radical commitment to equal dignity and shared leadership, I commit to building communities where every voice is valued and power serves the common good.

I offer You my voice, my mind, and my daily choices, choosing listening over top-down authority, holy simplicity over excess, and collective responsibility over indifference. Make me a builder of a world where all Your children can participate, belong, and flourish.

St. Clare, pray for us, that we may lead and love as you did.

Amen. +

(A printable version of this prayer is available here.)

Sr. Annie holds a doctorate in English from Yale University, where she studied 15th-century religion and literature with a focus on women’s writing and church reform. She is the author of a monograph, Reforming Lyric: Poetry and Theology in England, 1380-1530, and is currently at work on a second book, Mystical Ecology, which will look at the way medieval writers engage with the natural world in their theory and practice of contemplation. Her writing has appeared in Commonweal, Global Sisters Report, Christian Century, Spiritus, and—we’re happy to include—Tomorrow’s American Catholic. Sr. Annie also has experience in prison education and nonviolent peacemaking, and currently serves as the vice chair of the Pax Christi USA National Council.

Just in time for the Feast of Saint Dominic on August 8, we’re pleased to share our recent conversation with Sr. Annie. She guided us through some formative moments in her spiritual journey, including her experiences with a small Christian community and her introduction to religious life, and spoke of how she sees contemplation as a “work of resistance” that both centers and strengthens her ministry. We touched on her research and teaching in the field of lyric poetry, and the ways that attending to poetic language can help “move us beyond ourselves” and bring us into the quiet presence of God. We also looked at Sr. Annie’s commitment to the “spirituality of nonviolence,” why letting go of control is itself a form of witness, and the importance of “living the questions” to the life-adventure of faith.

See also:

“Sisters on the Move: The Dominican Sisters of Peace,” Sr. Annie’s essay in Commonweal, November 12, 2021

“Reflection on My First Profession,” Sr. Annie’s article for Global Sisters Report, October 18, 2022

“A Greater Understanding of Truth: English Professor Studies Medieval Poetry to Converse with the Past,” a profile of Sr. Annie for the University of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters

“Accompanying Families Facing Deportation,” Sr. Annie’s report from the Kino Border Initiative for Tomorrow’s American Catholic, June 16, 2026

Jack Hanson is one of our most erudite and insightful commentators on the state of the Catholic Church. His piece for New York magazine on the installation of Ronald Hicks as archbishop of New York in February doubled as a summary review of inflection points in the postwar US church as it moved, in Hanson’s telling, “from the quasi-pagan religion of the ethnic poor into the paragon of prosperous whiteness.” More recently, his appearance on the Know Your Enemy podcast to discuss Magnifica Humanitas helped describe and define that document’s moral infrastructure—its rebuke of authoritarianism, reaffirmation of the importance of discernment and free inquiry, and rejection of the paradigm that prizes efficiency above all else, to name just three key points—that frames its critique of artificial intelligence. (As a sidenote, anyone interested in exploring these themes further should seek out Tom Reese’s multipart series on the encyclical available through Religion News Service.)

Now Hanson has published a must-read essay in the August issue of Harper’s. “Radical Reformation” builds out the historical timeline he essayed in his New York piece to cover the last 150 years of church history, beginning with the annexation of the Papal States in 1870 and tracing the “tenuous and fractious” series of alliances undertaken by the church to maintain its influence within a rapidly shifting political order. “Throughout the first half of the century, it was difficult to gauge whether the Church was cynically tying itself to whatever movement would serve its interests, or attempting to stay as involved as possible in the development of European society in order to steer it away from the worst possible outcomes,” he writes, an articulation of moral ambivalence that brought to mind Tim Parks’s pointed indictment of Pope Pius XI’s decision to sign a concordat with Hitler in 1933: “Church policy, then, was one of compliance born out of intimidation and the conviction that souls could only be saved by the presence of a legally recognized Catholic Church; a return to the embattled and sometimes outlawed condition typical of the early Christian era was not contemplated.”

The essay moves on to the second half of the 20th century, with a special focus on the strengthening bond between the church and the United States—what Hanson calls “a stranger marriage than it may now seem”—throughout the Cold War. The waypoints will be familiar to anyone who’s been shaped by the social dynamics of the church over the past few generations: the flashpoints of the culture wars crystallized in debates over Humane Vitae, the rightward realignment around the issue of abortion “at the expense of nearly every other element of Catholic social teaching,” the tension between “ecclesial alternatives” such as liberation theology that grew out of Vatican II and a reactionary, traditionalist wing attached “to a fervid anticommunism that led to an almost idolatrous relationship to the socio-spiritual order called the West.”

Hanson uses this historical resume to set up the main thrust of his essay: “The Catholic Church’s progressive renewal,” as the subtitle would have it. Picking up with Francis’s pontificate after the “historical nadir” of Benedict XVI’s abdication in 2013, he shows how the re-prioritization of issues such as climate, migration, and protection of the poor and vulnerable transformed the public face of the church and challenged the tacit agreement between ecclesial and state power. Referencing challenges to the pope’s moral authority from professed Catholics J. D. Vance and border czar Tom Homan, Hanson rightly observes, “[F]or members of the administration to turn these rhetorical weapons on the institution that for so long could be counted on to wield them on behalf of the powers of reaction suggests both a rupture within the ideological framework of American empire and an important development in the Church’s self-presentation to the world.”

All of this brings us to the present moment, and to Leo’s deft maneuvering to reclaim not so much an ideological “center” as to orient the church’s political life around the invitations and demands of the Gospel. Hanson quotes his exhortation to attendees at last year’s National Catholic Youth Conference in Indianapolis: “The Church doesn’t belong to any political party. Rather, she helps form your conscience.” For the Jesuit theologian Tomáš Špidlík, conscience was “a stable disposition toward good” that “is always present and always at work in every human activity.” It is that sense of stability in the midst of activity that we are coming to associate with this pontificate, and that gives Leo’s pronouncements on peace and unity their quietly binding force.

A promising through-line of the essay is the idea that the church “is uniquely positioned to set the terms of future progress”—a reflection of the dismantling of the international order before our very eyes, and the (often overlapping) feelings of hope and hopelessness that shape our social, political, and even religious perceptions. Hanson sees Leo as guiding the church away from unstable alliances with foundering nation-states and reestablishing it “as a global community that is not defined by politics or limited by national boundaries.” This feels exactly right, particularly given Leo’s background as a “man of the whole hemisphere” and the spirit of transnational solidarity inherent in the church as a sacrament of unity and the human person as a site of the indwelling Trinity.

The other part of this is a reckoning with and reassessment of the church’s relationship to power: who wields it and how it should be used to more closely align with the Beatitudinal vision of Christ. Francis instigated this with his frequent professions of “servant leadership” and his ongoing synodal project to democratize decision-making in the image of the “inverted pyramid”; now, it seems, Leo has an opportunity to not only guide that project through its implementation (Matthew Shadle published a fine piece on the latest developments on that front earlier this week) but to export its animating features of communion, participation, and mission to the church’s dealings with the world at large. When Hanson writes that “It may seem paradoxical, but increasingly, the Church, which for so long struggled to navigate powerful states, may now best be defined by its opposition to power itself,” or characterizes the conclave’s decision to elevate the humble “Father Roberto” Prevost to the Petrine ministry as being “made to continue the work of reclaiming the Church for the vulnerable and against state and technological power,” he is both setting this sea change in its historical context and pointing to the refreshed ecclesial self-conception set forth in paragraph 20 of Magnifica Humanitas:

[T]he Church offers herself in a way that helps to interpret reality in all its depth. She supports with humble firmness the choices that promote the dignity of every person, the cohesion of communities and the good of all. The Church thus stands alongside the world without overpowering it, so that the promise of justice and peace that the Holy Spirit continues to sustain in the heart of humanity may come to fruition in every human endeavor. ♦

Michael Centore
Editor, Tomorrow’s American Catholic

John Fugelsang is an actor, author, political commentator, comedian, and broadcaster who currently hosts the progressive talk show Tell Me Everything on SiriusXM. His many and varied acting credits range across film, television, and stage productions. He has hosted and co-hosted multiple shows, including CNBC’s Bullseye and the political talk show Viewpoint. He is a regular guest on CNN, MSNBC, and other networks, and has contributed to the Huffington Post and the Daily Kos.

In this episode, John shares with us the story of his parents—a nun and Franciscan brother who fell in love and left their respective orders—and how they influenced his spiritual development and early relationship to the Catholic Church. He explores the image of Jesus as a “chain-breaker,” examines the gospel narrative as “an incredible example of resisting empire and authoritarianism in really interesting, creative, loving ways,” and engages with Christianity as a religion “not about domination, but transformation.”

Listen here »

Patrick Henry offers five points for a revitalized Peace Corps: “At the height of the Cold War, John F. Kennedy was insisting that he represented a new generation of Americans that would work for global solidarity against tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself. Less than two months later, on March 1, 1961, he signed Executive Order 10924, thereby creating the Peace Corps, whose goals were to help underdeveloped countries, to promote global understanding, and to build world peace. Today, 65 years later, it’s time for a new generation of Americans to create a new Peace Corps for the 21st century.”

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A poem by Sr. Lou Ella Hickman, OVISS:

They have grown into their future since then.
Becoming my past    a dot of memory 
that returns with what I wish I could have told them
          with what I know now. . . .

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They have grown into their future since then.
Becoming my past    a dot of memory 
that returns with what I wish I could have told them
          with what I know now.
That Sunday afternoon the day long rain had deluged everything.
          My car a small boat moving with a wake of water above the tires.
I entered a classroom draped with a sullen I have to be here
          because my parents made me.
I show a movie clip telling them that Confirmation is like this story.
          Whatever that story was.
I wish I had told them they were my heroes    living reminders
          of the White Rose martyrs, the young saints like the Little Flower
          declared a Doctor of the Church, the young inventors like Louis Braille.
I wish I had told them if I were called to die for God, I would want to be like them.
          Willing.   Unafraid to die.   So sure with love.
Their future still unfolds. And their children’s as well. Every past breathing into tomorrow.
I pray they learned what I did not know to say.

Sr. Lou Ella Hickman is a widely published poet and a member of the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament of Corpus Christi, Texas. Her poetry collection she: robed and wordless was published in 2015 as a Tom Lombardo Poetry Selection, an imprint of Press 53. Her second collection, Writing the Stars, was published in 2024 by Press 53.

Near the end of his inaugural address, on January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy concluded: “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Those words meant something to me. I was 20 years old at the time, walking guard duty near the DMZ in Korea, eight years after the fighting had stopped there.

At the height of the Cold War, Kennedy was insisting that he represented a new generation of Americans that would work for global solidarity against tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself. Less than two months later, on March 1, 1961, he signed Executive Order 10924, thereby creating the Peace Corps, whose goals were to help underdeveloped countries, to promote global understanding, and to build world peace.

Today, 65 years later, it’s time for a new generation of Americans to create a new Peace Corps for the 21st century. Here are five things that our new group can do for our country:

I. Trash “America First”: Let’s stop thinking only about our own country as if we lived in a vacuum, as if everything is okay in the world as long as the price of gas remains under $4 dollars a gallon. The “America First” mentality is based on greed, oil, and disregard for the fate of others. In its place, let’s rejoin the treaties we dropped out of, where countries create communal bonds and work together to solve the world’s problems. Let’s once again become reliable partners who work through dialogue and diplomacy, not pronouncements, executive orders, and threats.

II. Slash the Military Budget: Quite simply, the proposed military budget of $1.5 trillion for 2027, the largest in history, is nothing short of obscene in any case—but particularly in our case, given the homelessness, food insecurity, and healthcare problems in our country. Let’s never forget Martin Luther King Jr.’s words: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

III. End Our Endless and Senseless Wars: A recent Brown University report reveals horrific data: U.S. military operations since 9/11 have killed more than 940,000 people in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Pakistan, and that “as a result of those wars’ destruction of economics, healthcare systems, infrastructure and the environment, an estimated 3.6-3.8 million people died, bringing the total death toll to at least 4.5-4.7 million people.” This does not include the 72,000 casualties in Gaza or the several thousand in Iran. All this carnage and destruction, for what? It should be obvious to everyone that violence only breeds more violence and unending cycles of revenge. The last two popes, Francis and Leo, have maintained that there is no longer such a thing as a “just war.” What could be more sobering than the fact that, since 1990, 90 percent of the victims of all wars have been civilians? We need to abolish the newly formed Department of War and create a cabinet-level Department of Peace that would prioritize nonviolent conflict resolution, violence prevention, and peacebuilding both at home and abroad.

IV. Welcome Immigrants: The fact that masked employees of the federal government are randomly rounding up and deporting people in our streets based on the color of their skin is beyond outrageous. Let’s be merciful neighbors and show compassion to all people who have been here for years, working hard, and paying taxes. My father came to this country in 1914; yes,112 years ago. He came at the age of 17 with only five years of school from a starving family with 12 children. He spent two years working in a bar in Manhattan, paying back the man who paid his way over to America. Then he served in the Navy during World War I and then as a New York City policeman for 41 years. Does his story sound familiar? It should. It’s the story of just about every Mexican American family I know in my hometown of Walla Walla, Washington: arrive with little education, take menial jobs, give your children opportunities you never had. We are a country of immigrants; that is our strength. Make no bones about it: the current administration’s treatment of immigrants as well as its persistent campaign to do away with birthright citizenship is driven by pure racism. We must use nonviolent means to resist these efforts. The danger here is not civil disobedience but rather civil obedience.

V. Abolish Nuclear Weapons: Last year, the nine nuclear nations spent $119 billion on their nuclear arsenals. Once again, by spending $69 billion, the United States outspent the other eight nuclear nations combined. Not only is this an egregious waste of money, but the existence of nuclear weapons represents the greatest threat to our survival as a species and the greatest threat to the planet itself. Even so, today there are no nuclear weapons limitation treaties nor treaties for monitoring nuclear development, and most nuclear powers are modernizing and expanding their nuclear arsenals. We must convince our leaders to bring us back from the brink of disaster and join the 122 nations who have signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which bans “developing, testing, producing, acquiring, possessing, stockpiling, using, or threatening to use nuclear weapons.” ♦

Patrick Henry served in the US Army from 1960 to 1962. He taught French literature and French language at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, for 30 years. Now, he teaches in the Quest Program at Walla Walla Community College. His last three books have been Holocaust related.

John’s 2015 film Dream On, structured as a road trip in search of the American Dream, was named Best Documentary at the New York Independent Film Festival. His first book, Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds, was published in August 2025 by Avid Reader Press. Acclaimed novelist Anne Lamott called the book “brilliant and wise, rich in spiritual knowledge and humor, an exhilarating response to Christian nationalists, and a master class in Jesus, the true and Jesus-y Jesus, of love, caring and forgiveness.”

In this episode, John shares with us the story of his parents—a nun and Franciscan brother who fell in love and left their respective orders—and how they influenced his spiritual development and early relationship to the Catholic Church. He explores the image of Jesus as a “chain-breaker,” examines the gospel narrative as “an incredible example of resisting empire and authoritarianism in really interesting, creative, loving ways,” and engages with Christianity as a religion “not about domination, but transformation.” Along the way, we discuss issues confronting the church and world today—from gender equality and priestly celibacy to the rise of fundamentalism and Christian nationalism—and learn why John has come to believe that “the teachings of Christ might be America’s last hope.”