We need some criteria in deciding what music is best for Mass. St. Thomas Aquinas offers us three qualities that anything beautiful must have.

Why do some members of our church, clergy and laity alike, perceive racial justice movements as more of a threat to the republic than the movement that led to the assault on Congress?

We have learned a lot about sexual abuse by Catholic clergy since The Boston Globe unveiled its investigation in 2002, writes an expert in child protection. That is bringing us closer to the goal of seeing no new cases.

My neighbors lost homes because our political and economic institutions have failed to respond to a crisis they have long known was coming.

The temptation is to fight the ghosts of Modernism by denigrating those working for social justice and “elites” as anti-religious co-conspirators. But this would be a disservice to the truth and to the church.

If it depends on supporting the fake meat industry, vegetarianism is not a superior ethical or moral stance. But there is an alternative in the “ideal kind of farm” described by Pope John XXIII.