Saint Richard Catholic Church & School

Appreciation: Ted George now joins the ancestors. He leaves behind important lessons about community organizing, resiliency, and the gifts and personal costs that come along with a devotion to cross-cultural justice work.

Scripture for Life: When was the last time you considered the question, "What is my calling?" That's not a question of your job, although the hope is that any occupation we engage in becomes an expression of our deeper call. 

Moya Bailey's book focuses on how and why misogynoir serves as a critical framework for people writing, thinking and organizing more deeply around Black women's systemic plights. Her work examines how popular culture and media perpetuate the mistreatment of Black women.

The Looney Tunes, LeBron James and a completely over-the-top, high-stakes basketball game make "Space Jam" a fun movie. But underneath the laughter lie serious questions about the meaning of life in the age of algorithms and artificial intelligence.

Soul Seeing: On July 25, Catholics will celebrate the elderly. We grandparents will express gratitude for the gift of our grandchildren. After all, they give us the same gift we give them: the joy in knowing that we are an unadulterated delight.

TV review: Comedian and musician Bo Burnham's physical evolution and spiraling psyche over the course of his latest Netflix special force a reckoning with the psychological toll of the last year and a half.

In many parts of the Amazon, lay leaders weave the fabric of Catholic communities together.

The images of flooded villages and towns in Germany have shocked the world, prompting aid agencies in developing countries more accustomed to dealing with natural disasters to offer words of compassion and concern to one of Europe's most prosperous nations.  Although Germany will not need aid for reconstruction, dioceses globally and partners of the Catholic-run charities such as Aid to the Church in Need, Misereor, and the Caritas Internationalis network in places such as Cuba, Honduras, India, Mali, Philippines and Zimbabwe have sent messages of support and solidarity to German church relief agencies. It's a reversal of roles, in which countries in the global south that have long been affected by climate change and devastating natural disasters are offering whatever comfort they can to the developed north.

Commentary: I buck myself up with a reminder that Catholicism is much bigger than the latest scandal or headline. The church is an ancient, beautiful and flawed vessel that has carried the best and worst of humanity over the centuries. 

News reports say the Biden administration may not roll back at the end of July a policy that keeps migrants out of the country, citing health measures given the rising number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. Immigrant advocates were already pressuring the Biden administration to end what's known as Title 42 of the Public Health Safety Act, a policy the Trump administration began using in March 2020 as knowledge of rising infections of the coronavirus began to surge in the U.S. — and around the world.