Focus

• Christian faith critical for World Cup star Clint Dempsey

  Jun 18, 2014

  U.S. soccer fans went wild on Monday as team captain Clint Dempsey scored a goal during the first minute of the club’s opening World Cup game against Ghana.

  

• Food For Thought

  Jun 13, 2014

  In February, Pope Francis, in his trademark simplicity, urged the faithful gathered for his weekly audience to attend Mass on Sundays.

  

• Why call the Mass a celebration?

  Jun 13, 2014

  A Mass is not called a celebration only when it gives rise to happiness in the people of God. Still, that might be one good reason to consider it a celebration.

  

• Sunday Mass, more than an obligation

  Jun 13, 2014

  I recently heard someone ask the question: Why do we have to go for Mass? I don't think I’d heard that question since I was a child, when someone was whining, begging to stay home.

  
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  Wearied in our patience

  Jun 13, 2014

  Thirty years ago, before the airline hijackings of September 11, 2001, before the shoe-bomber and others like him, it was simpler to travel by air.

  
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  Three faiths pray for peace in the Holy Land

  Jun 13, 2014

  Representatives of Judaism, Christianity and Islam said prayers from their respective religious communities at Sunday’s historic “Invocation for Peace” at the Vatican, praying for peace in the Holy Land and throughout the Middle East.

  

• Food for thought

  Jun 05, 2014

  Some of us may find a little more time in our schedules for volunteer work at our parish or elsewhere in our community.

  

• Volunteer work as a form of prayer

  Jun 05, 2014

  Ever since I moved to Washington a couple of years ago, I’ve been repeatedly hearing the name of a particular woman in the area.

  

• Parish volunteer’s sacrifice comes with benefits

  Jun 05, 2014

  People do indeed give something up when they assume an active role in a parish ministry. Undoubtedly, in the eyes of some, this element of sacrifice is the downside of serving as a parish volunteer.

  

• Justice still eludes Indonesian torture victims

  Jun 05, 2014

  In the turbulent final years of Suharto’s reign as strongman of Indonesia, Mugiyanto – like many in the country, he goes by only one name – took shelter in what he thought was a “safe house”.