Monday, July 20, 2026

Land for the Humble

The Beatitudes: Week One

Land for the Humble

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]

Leaving Church

RonRolheiser,OMI

November 29, 2021

A A A

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.

Faith in Focus

Will AI make you happy?

Lessons in misery and bliss from a roller coaster and a rafting trip

by Anna Keating July 17, 2026

Credit: Somruthai Keawjan on Unsplash

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.]

Catherine Meeks, founder of the Turquoise and Lavender Institute for Transformation and Healing (Courtesy of Catherine Meeks)

Guest Voices

Opinion

Podcast: 'Racism has injured us all,' says racial healing leader Catherine Meeks

John Dear ncr

As US Catholic nuns age, more congregations turn to outside leaders

July 20, 2026

As US Catholic nuns age, more congregations turn to outside leaders

Dan Stockman ncr

Sunday, July 19, 2026

STRATEGIES OF NUNS AND NONES TO ENGAGE THE RELIGIOUSLY DISAFFILIATED

One of the most creative strategies to engage the religiously disaffected is the Nuns and Nones movement, a national organization that includes several hundred Catholic sisters and younger nones. The theology underlying these efforts by Catholic sisters is one of accompaniment, not proselytization.

THE SEXIST CHURCH I LOVE

When the church has little time for women’s presence, when the church takes little notice of women’s questions, when the church holds little respect for women’s insights, when the church devotes itself to preaching the gospel of equality for women but preserves a male theology and a male system, staying in the church demands a purpose far beyond ourselves.