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Friday, August 29, 2025

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Faith in the Public Arena

Faith in the Public Arena

Caucusing for human dignity

It might not be a presidential election year, but in November, Minnesotans will still vote for a governor and all 10 of its representatives in Congress, including two U.S. Senate seats. These decisions can potentially shift balances of power on both state and national levels.
Faith in the Public Arena

Taking battle notes from Star Wars

“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” bring this dynamic to life on the silver screen and provide a profound image of our duty as Catholics in today’s culture and public arena: to be workers, ministers and prophets of a future not our own.
Faith in the Public Arena

St. Francis: Tough words for lawmakers and citizens alike

St. Francis of Assisi is a beloved saint to many, but often a mischaracterized one. Usually shown with animals, the mainstream vision of Francis is tame and gentle. However, St. Francis was an intense and radical preacher, consumed with zeal for the kingdom of God and intent on relaying the truth to others, including Muslim sultans.
Faith in the Public Arena

Overdoses, violence and God-talk

Our society is failing to get to the bottom of the issues. We spend our energy trying to treat the symptoms of social crises, while either ignoring or remaining in denial about the deeper problems in today’s world, which exist first and foremost within the human heart.
Faith in the Public Arena

Combating racial disparities

Racial disparities continue to persist in American life. As a response, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently instituted a new initiative to fight racism in all its forms.
Faith in the Public Arena

Gender ideology: colonizing — not cultivating — student minds

Our schools should be places where children are trained to pursue the true, the good and the beautiful — or, at the very least, equipped to honestly and rationally engage with objective reality. A school should be a place of education, not ideological instruction.
Faith in the Public Arena

The crisis of men without work

There is a growing deficit of men in the workforce.
Faith in the Public Arena

Love Jesus, not politics

In my work as the policy and outreach coordinator for the Minnesota Catholic Conference, I meet many Catholics who have a deep aversion to politics. In their experience, politics are so steeped in special interests and dominated by power games that they don’t see why a Catholic should wade into such an imperfect arena.
Faith in the Public Arena

Breaking the state’s monopoly on hearts, minds

The well-being of Minnesota students took a hit during this year’s legislative session, as the Opportunity Scholarship Program was left by the wayside during final negotiations. Despite the fact that similar programs have been successful in several others states and could have played an important role in closing Minnesota’s unacceptable achievement gap, it was scrapped after an all-out revolt from the public school establishment.
Faith in the Public Arena

Immigration and an Easter people

The Easter season is a time to confidently celebrate the victory of Christ over death, once and for all. But the confidence of the resurrection is too often missing from our lives as Christians — in our commission to proclaim the good news, yes, but also in our call to faithful citizenship.
Faith in the Public Arena

Novak and the moral foundations of a free society

The Catholic world lost one of its most illuminating thinkers when Michael Novak recently passed away at age 83. Novak can be credited with articulating a vision of the moral foundations necessary to maintain a system of democratic capitalism (political freedom and free enterprise).
Faith in the Public Arena

Making sure our water works

In the Land of 10,000 Lakes, it can be easy to take water for granted — it is literally all around us, even more so in the rainy month of April.
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Catholic University of America Press to publish Pope Leo’s dissertation
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Local Catholics share connections to Minnesota Benedictine whose cause for canonization opens in October
German bishops face division over same-sex blessings
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