The Dialog

This past week approximately 10,000 students in parish, regional, diocesan and private Catholic schools in the Diocese of Wilmington were welcomed back to their schools by almost 1000 educators and staff. The 2016-2017 school year is underway!

Plans for the 2016-2017 school year began last December, and, in some cases, earlier. Administrators and teachers set calendars, designed schedules and rosters, acquired resources, planned activities and athletics, finalized budgets, etc. Parents chose particular schools for new students, began tuition payments, and purchased technology and uniforms. All of this occurred in preparation for the 2016-2017 school year. Read more »

In his 19th century novel, “The Island of Doctor Moreau,” H.G. Wells tells a chilling story about a doctor on a Pacific island who performs horrific experiments to craft animals into human beings.

While Dr. Moreau’s world might be far-fetched for now, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a federally funded medical research agency, wants to start funding research on human-animal chimeras that could move us in that direction. Read more »

Bishop Malooly and Father Norman P. Carroll, director of the Office of Priestly and Religious Vocations and pastor of St. Elizabeth Church, met with the five current seminarians for the Diocese of Wilmington at St. E’s rectory July 21 for dinner. Read more »

The following guest commentary is excerpted from the July 12 issue of the Clarion Herald, newspaper of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. It was written by Peter Finney Jr., executive editor and general manager. It was written before three police officers were killed in Baton Rouge, La., but it remains pertinent.

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The scholar of the law, because he wished to justify himself, asked Jesus: “And who is my neighbor?”

A week of black and white bloodshed in America — from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to St. Paul, Minnesota, to Dallas — leads directly to Jerusalem and Jericho. Read more »

In the last 2,000 years the church has called ecumenical councils to struggle with changes in the church and the world. More than 50 years ago, Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council to prepare the church for the 20th century. Like many councils, it prepared a program to help the church in its mission in the modern world.

Fifty years have passed and the council’s recommendations and aims still need to be studied and addressed. The changes were intensive and challenging. As in any organization, there are always two sides in the debate, so it is no surprise it has taken many years to understand and accept its decision. Read more »

With the proclamation of the Holy Year of Mercy, Pope Francis has encouraged us to begin a personal examination of our relationship to God’s mercy.

The ball is in our court. How will we truly “find the joy rediscovering and rendering fruitful God’s mercy,” as Pope Francis has urged us?

We start by reviewing the corporal works of mercy. We recognize many of our actions on that list. Read more »

I don’t know if there are Home Depots in Rome, but an enterprising household goods sales person over there might call on Pope Francis to sell him a gigantic welcome mat for St. Peter’s Basilica. “You’re welcomed in the church” has been the pope’s continuing theme since his pontificate began in 2013.

He extended that welcome again last week when he released his postsynodal apostolic exhortation “‘Amoris Laetitia’ (“The Joy of Love”) on Love in the Family.”

The document’s title might be unwieldy, but its message is positive, clear-eyed and traditional. Read more »

The routine of running a home with three children took on a new dimension for Makielah Conway when the Flint, Michigan, water crisis seeped into her residence. A full-time mom and part-time volunteer at Community Closet based out of Flint Catholic Charities, Makielah shares her typical day: Read more »

Now that Pope Francis has embraced Kirill, the Russian Orthodox Patriarch in Havana, I’m excited about the possibility of seeing a pope visit Moscow’s Red Square in my lifetime.

When I was growing up, an air raid siren erupted every Saturday at noon in my hometown like a civic Angelus bell reminder of the H-bomb. The ugly sound was a weekly herald of the Cold War’s nuclear game of chicken that the United States and the Communist Soviet Union were waging then.

That’s why, for me, a Roman Catholic pontiff visiting the onion domed St. Basil’s Cathedral, now a Red Square museum, would seem miraculous. Read more »

This is the thanks-saying, thanks-doing, thanksgiving season. It begins in late November and runs through Christmas. In the United States, Thanksgiving Day is a secular feast, although many religious congregations mark it with special services and prayers.

We would be a better, stronger, happier nation if we lived gratefully with one another every day of the year, not just on Thanksgiving Day. Organized religion can help to make that happen. Read more »