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They’ve tossed their mortarboard caps, cleared out their dorms and set out to begin careers. A notable subset of recent college graduates, in addition to moving dozens of plastic totes back to their parents’ house and reporting to their new jobs, are also on the hunt for vibrant parishes in their new cities to take the place of dynamic campus ministries.
Anton Cermak, Chicago’s first foreign-born mayor, understood something about American politics and culture that many have since worked hard to forget. “I didn’t come over on the Mayflower,” Cermak said. “I got here as soon as I could.”
Born in 1873 in what is today the Czech Republic, Cermak saw his ethnic roots as a source of strength rather than shame. He brought together many Catholics who had recently arrived in America—Poles, Irish, Italians—as well as Jewish immigrants, to challenge entrenched, mostly Protestant interests. The push to end Prohibition became a powerful, unifying cause. While different ethnic groups still competed and retained their own identities and institutions, they formed an enduring political coalition.
Wednesday, July 8, 2026
Blessed are the gentle: They shall have the Earth as their inheritance.
—Matthew 5:5
Father Richard explains why the third beatitude would have been simultaneously shocking and comforting to Jesus’s listeners:
The third beatitude is almost taken verbatim from Psalm 37:11: “The humble shall have the land for their own.” Some translate “gentle” as “the nonviolent,” but perhaps the most familiar translation is “the meek.” There’s an irony here. If there was one hated group in the Palestine of Jesus’s day, it was landlords—those who possessed the land. Nobody possessed land except by violence and oppression, by holding onto it and making all the powerless peasants pay a portion of their harvest. The landlords certainly weren’t meek or gentle, so Jesus is turning that around and saying, “No, it’s you, humble ones, who are finally going to possess the land.” [1]
Why are so many people leaving their churches? There is no one answer to that question. People are complex. Faith is complex. The issues are complex.
Looking at the question, it can be helpful to distinguish among a number of groups. The Nones, the Dones, the Spiritual-but-not-Religious, the Indifferent, the Angry, and the Marginalized. While there is some overlap among these groups, each has its own set of issues with the church.
Great thinkers have disagreed on how to find happiness. Some find it in work, others in leisure. Some say we receive it. Others say we create it. These days, many suggest that artificial intelligence technology promises an easier, and therefore happier, life. But when using A.I. or, really, any addictive app, users often feel disembodied. In these pseudo-places, it is difficult to get one’s bearings, to feel real: Is this my opinion, or am I being manipulated to extremes by the algorithm? Is this image real, or is it A.I.? Do I like this or am I just scrolling to numb out? These questions came to the fore recently when I visited, of all places, an amusement park.
The Bondage of Celibacy
Leonardo Cruoglio
NOTE: I started the idea as a poem]
We priests
Would I had thrived
Been free
From the bondage of Celibacy
A freedom promised
By the search
Issued from Paul VI
But snatched away by
The belief in the way
Things always exist
[However My poem ends here because I was confronted with the truth in the Prophet Amos’ words.]
