I would like to start off by clarifying that there was no wedding here at Casa Juan Diego in the physical sense but that every day we experience the fruits of Mary’s intercession just as they did at the Wedding at Cana. The time of Advent waiting for the celebration of the birth of Jesus… continue reading
Casa Juan Diego and the Incarnation In Time of Crisis
The question comes to us each day: How to live the joy of the Incarnation of the eternal Word longed for and anticipated for so many centuries and a reality in our world even now, in the midst of the changes in our lives during this past year and the suffering of so many? Catholic… continue reading
Writing Straight with Crooked Lines: Jim Forest’s Memoir
Jim Forest, Writing Straight with Crooked Lines: A Memoir. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2020. 326 pp. + ix. For three decades, Jim Forest has written books on prayer, friendship, forgiveness, and a string of biographies on Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, and Daniel Berrigan, all of which offer snippets from his personal experiences. But in this… continue reading
A New Beginning in Uncertain Times at Casa Juan Diego
Anne joined Casa Juan Diego as a Catholic Worker at Casa Juan Diego on August 1, 202,0 after her graduation from St. Mary’s College in Indiana. I was welcomed at Casa Juan Diego with the simple instructions given by Louise Zwick to all new Catholic Workers upon arrival: ring the doorbell when you’re here. When… continue reading
Fratelli Tutti, New Encyclical of Pope Francis
“FRATELLI TUTTI With these words, Saint Francis of Assisi addressed his brothers and sisters and proposed to them a way of life marked by the flavor of the Gospel.” Thus begins the third encyclical of Pope Francis, with words that could change all of our lives if we take them to heart. Pope Francis teaches… continue reading
Catholic Social Teaching, Matthew 25 and Land Reform: Blood in the Fields and In the Streets
“In the eschatological parable of the sheep and the goats, Christ identifies so closely with the hunger, thirst, homelessness, nakedness, sickness, and imprisonment of others that he takes on their afflictions and they become his own.” (Blood in the Fields, p. 206) The demonstrations and protests of 2020 in response to the death of George… continue reading
Federal agents are expelling asylum seekers as young as 8 months from the border, citing COVID-19 risks
Thousands of migrant children have been expelled by the Trump administration since March. Some have been held in hotels without access to lawyers or family. Advocates say many are now “virtually impossible” to find. from THE TEXAS TRIBUNE AND PROPUBLICA AUG. 4, 2020 https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/04/border-migrant-children-hotels/. A teenage girl carrying her baby arrived at the U.S. border… continue reading
The Devastating Effects of Immigration Detention
In 2013, early in his papacy, Pope Francis’s first trip outside Rome was to minister to the immigrants who were in detention on the island of Lampedusa. There he famously decried the “culture of indifference” which allows the world to ignore the sufferings of migrants and refugees, and instead he called for a culture of… continue reading
Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century
Book Review John Loughery & Blythe Randolph, Dorothy Day: Dissenting Voice of the American Century. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2020. Can any single work capture and convey the story of Dorothy Day’s endlessly fascinating and significant life? Religiously precocious child born to nominally Christian parents. Radical journalist and activist in her teens. Bold bohemian in… continue reading
Dorothy Day at Koinonia Farm
“I have not yet resisted unto blood,” Dorothy Day commented, after surviving a drive-by shooting at Koinonia Farm. She had endured many hardships–jeers, threats, and insults, being shoved into paddy wagons and jailed–but her acts of protest against war and social injustice had never put her life at risk. She had never been shot… continue reading