We do not anticipate young mothers dying at a moment devoted to birth, and yet we know it happens. We know about death, and yet we are caught unawares by it.

Since retiring from my job, my husband has found me irritating. We had a talk (after fighting), and he is right: I am mothering him. Smothering him. “I have a mother,” he said. “I want a wife, a partner, a best friend.”

The most compelling reason not to execute the convicted is an existential one: We humans are not God.

Like the men of Galilee present at the ascension of Jesus, we search the skies for unclouded meaning.

The church needs our young people. But we elders cannot nurture them in the faith if we repel them.

It is time for us to understand how this keeps happening and to stop it. We women are being called to shake things up.

Like the apostles, we have been sent out two by two to proclaim the message of Jesus with our imperfect lives.

Pretrial freedom should not belong only to those who can purchase it.

When we bargain with God, we espouse a God who keeps score, rather than the God who loves us no matter what.

There have been times when I have only held onto my Catholic faith by the smallest of fingernails. I am a doubter. I am a protester.