Pope Francis is the first Jesuit pope But he is not the first Jesuit cardinal archbishop or bishop How many Jesuit cardinals archbishops and bishops have there been in Jesuit history and how many are there now Today we learned that Michael Charles Barber S J was appointed bishop of Oakland

From the USCCB POPE NAMES JESUIT TO HEAD DIOCESE OF OAKLAND CALIFORNIAWASHINGTON mdash Pope Francis has named nbsp Jesuit Father Michael Barber nbsp 58 a member of the Jesuit Province of California and director of spiritual formation at St John rsquo s Seminary Brighton Boston Massachusetts

May is the month in which the church honors Mary by happy coincidence it is also the month when secular culture honors mothers According to the Bible Mary rsquo s role in salvation history is small but mighty Through the agency of the Holy Spirit she conceives the Messiah gives birth to Jesus

On May Day there were riots in Greece in protest of the ruinous austerity imposed by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund Eurostat the official European statistics agency announced Tuesday that unemployment had hit a new high of 19 million Youth unemployment on a continent-wide

I didn rsquo t know a great deal about Joseph P Kennedy before I began reading about him and from the little I knew he seemed an unsavory character He had made a large fortune some of it possibly from bootlegging he was the U S ambassador to Great Britain from 1938 to 1940 and supported appeas

I nbsp am going to have to nominate Kim Daniels for 2013 ldquo thankless task rdquo award finalist As the new spokesperson for not the U S bishops rsquo conference nor for Cardinal Timothy Dolan in his capacity as archbishop of New York but for the office of the president of the U S C C B