Freelance

Mercy’s Bones

A piece I wrote for Notre Dame Magazine during the Catholic Church’s Year of Mercy in 2016:

When I was a reporting for a Catholic newspaper in Florida, I visited Haiti to report on the work being done by parishioners who had founded a humanitarian aid organization. Ever since Pope Francis opened the Jubilee Year of Mercy last month I keep coming back to this experience — it’s where I felt mercy’s bones…

The Deepest Layer of Who We Are

A piece I wrote for Angelus about the life of St. Maria Goretti in 2018.

Maybe you’ve heard of St. Maria Goretti because she’s the patron saint of victims of sexual assault. Maybe you know she was stabbed when she was resisting the attack of a young man in the tenant building they shared. Maybe you know that she forgave him as she was dying.

Read between the lines of what happened to her, and you’ll see choices that made faith real for her — not an interest or an idea, but something as real as the air she breathed. And the final choice she made — to forgive her attacker — was just another choice in the same pattern.

What I’ll Remember About Saying Goodbye to Father Ted

A piece I wrote for Notre Dame Magazine as a reflection on the funeral of Father Theodore Hesburgh, CSC, former president of the University and global Catholic intellectual.

I witnessed the funeral and remembrances of Father Theodore Hesburgh, CSC, last week, and I wanted to record some fleeting impressions — both for myself for later, and to share with those from the Notre Dame family who could not be on campus for this event. This is what I will remember…