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Why Believe in God? To Live Inside a Poem
Bearings Online 4 October 2018 There comes a time in almost any undergraduate theology class when professors like me must respond to the question: Why believe? This may come as a surprise to those who...
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Putting Lent back into Christmas
Bearings Online 6 December 2018 The commercialization of Christmas is old news. The war against Christmas is fake news. The wringing of hands is wrung out. Yet still the Christmas Muzak drones on:...
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The Mystery in Ordinary Churches
Bearings OnlineNovember 5, 2019 If only they would restore a sense of mystery to the Mass, Catholics could put God first and the Church could find its way back to vibrancy. So goes the argument from...
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We Are All Monks Now
Bearings OnlineApril 7, 2020 So here we are, mostly inside, self-isolated to help stop the Covid-19 pandemic, cloistered as it were. Even libertarians and other individualists realize they are social...
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a poem by Ivan J. Kauffman from his collection,The Ironshop & Chartres (1982) Declaimed.That is a word seldom used these days.Once popular it has fallen into disuse in our timeswhen anger and...
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A Pilgrim People: Becoming a Catholic Peace Church
Recent decades have seen a steady trend in Roman Catholic teaching toward a commitment to active nonviolence that could qualify the church as a “peace church.” As a moral theologian specializing in...
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Where Have You Gone, Malcolm Gladwell? An Open Letter
Bearings Online19 November 2020 Dear Malcolm Gladwell, It is too bad that the malcolmgladwellbookgenerator.com website doesn’t work anymore. I hope you enjoyed the gentle ribbing back in the day. Your...
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Of Elves and Theologians
On December 3, 2021, the Theology Department at the University of St. Thomas gave me a belated retirement party — belated because of the COVID-19 pandemic. These were my remarks. As some of you know,...
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