My relationship with Mary, like that of many women, is complicated. Mary embodies some of my most deeply held values. As a young, poor woman from Galilee, she represents how God chose to enter into human existence in the most radically humble way. Her “Magnificat” is one of the most powerful passages in the Gospels. Read more
For many Catholic adults who oppose abortion today, the pro-life movement was our real introduction to moral philosophy. Maybe we attended prayer vigils with our families in grade school or high school, or maybe we just read news magazines and argued with kids on the school bus. Either way, the questions surrounding abortion opened our Read more
In an iconic article published a decade ago and entitled, “The Motherhood Experiment,” the New York Times Magazine celebrated Sweden for solving the population and family problems of modern European society. It explained: “Curiously, Europe’s lowest birthrates are seen in countries, mostly Catholic, where the old idea that the man is the breadwinner and the woman is Read more
How many people do you know who can give you a technical description of photosynthesis and quote from Ludwig Ott’s Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma? Dr. Stacy Trasancos (stacytrasancos.com) is one such person, accomplished in both science and theology. A native of Texas, Trasancos’s love of nature and insatiable curiosity led her to eventually earn a Read more
The night I first saw the film Full of Grace is one I won’t soon forget. It was a night of extreme paradox. We were invited to the premiere by my parents, who had purchased tickets for me and my 14-year-old daughter. It being a school night, I wrestled with the decision to bring her, Read more
Growing up, I was a huge consumer of media, and all you heard about this generation was that we were lazy, entitled, narcissistic, very promiscuous and the demise of the future. But when I looked around at my friends, all in a public school in South Florida, I saw something very different: everyone was hungry Read more
The first woman to be appointed to a Vatican congregation sees the move as a realisation of Pope Francis’s wish for more women in official Church positions. Sr Luzia Premoli, superior general of the Combonian Missionary Sisters, was appointed a member of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples on September 13. She told the Read more
The best way to describe how I felt when I first became a mother is invisible. I went from going to meetings, lectures and libraries, where people would show interest in me and my work, to being stuck in our apartment with round the clock feedings and baby care. I didn’t see many people, and, Read more
Adam Franssen, a biology professor at Longwood University, has a bold theory: mothers are smarter than other women. He and other researchers, including Craig Kinsley of the University of Richmond, have found that there’s more science than previously thought to being equipped for motherhood. Mothers are better at problem solving, handling stress and at completing Read more