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I’m frustrated. I’m also full of opinions about how everything’s been handled. What’s more, I can show you the experts who share my opinions.  If you disagree with me — as many people do — you’re probably just as passionate, and you probably have experts just as big, if not bigger.

The last two months have been very difficult, to say the least. For some of you, your livelihoods have been shaken, and your faith tested. The impact of the Coronavirus has spread terror across the world, bringing illness and death.  In the midst of this pandemic, however, the Paschal Mystery recently celebrated at Easter assures us that neither anguish nor death will have the last word. “Who can separate us from the Love of God…” (Rom 8:35-39).

Every year, the days leading up to the celebration of Independence Day in the United States affords the opportunity to reflect ever more deeply on what true liberty is and the blessings of being able to live in a free society. 

As we approach the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, it is important to consider some of the inroads that have been made in pro-life efforts in our own community. At one time there were five abortion clinics in the city of Corpus Christi. Now there are none. There are also numerous pregnancy resources centers throughout our diocese that offer resources and care for pregnant moms and their babies. Good news abounds in our South Texas region.

I know many of you ask the reason for the numerous national collections or in many people’s words the special collections. Let me list them for you: Aid to the Church in Central & Eastern Europe; Black and Indian Missions; Catholic Campaign for Human Development; Catholic Communications Campaign; Catholic Relief Services; Catholic University of America; Church in Latin America; Catholic Home Missions Appeal; Disaster Relief; Holy Land; Peter’s Pence; Respect Life; Retired Diocesan Priests Fund; Retirement Fund for Religious; Rice Bowl and World Mission Sunday.

As many of our readers know first hand, grandchildren can easily tug at your heartstrings. That has indeed been the case with my wife Genie and I. Our daughter Christina and her husband Bobby, blessed us with our first grandchild, Joseph Isaac, in August. My son Matthew and his wife Jes are scheduled to bring our granddaughter Aurora Jeane into our lives on July 4. Our heart is made full of joy by the fact that our daughter Monica and her fiance Ryan will enter into the holy sacrament of matrimony in September. Genie and I want to be an active part of our children and grandchildren’s lives so by the time you read this column we will be comfortably living in retirement learning to spoil grandkids.

Throughout the life of the Church, for more than 2,000 years, the Holy Spirit has given extraordinary graces to be shared with the entire Church. Usually, these graces come through a founder or groups of people who initiate a spiritual life centered around a charism. For example, St. Francis understood the gospel as poverty. His charism was to live with and care for the poor. Thus the entire Franciscan movement began. Around St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, the Carmelite charism of prayer was given as a richness for the entire Church. In our day, several charisms have emerged before, during and after the Second Vatican Council.

The words used in the distribution of ashes on Ash Wednesday, express to us two essential truths of our lives. We have sinned; we are sinners. This we hear in the words “Repent and believe in the Good News.” Secondly, we are reminded that we are mortals and we have no lasting home here on earth; “Remember, man, you are dust and unto dust you will return.”

On the Feast of the Epiphany of the Lord, we as the people of God in the Diocese of Corpus Christi began a process to develop a pastoral plan for the diocese. A pastoral plan is like a road map similar to the star the Magi saw that led them to Jesus. Over the next few months, together, we will discern in the light of the Holy Spirit and with the presence of Jesus among us, how God wants us to renew ourselves as a community of missionary disciples and by what means he wishes us to be his instruments in bringing the Good News to others.

Happy New Year! May this New Year of 2018 be filled with many graces and peace.

I want to take the opportunity to wish each one of you, our readers, a very blessed and holy Christmas season. During this Advent, in a particular way, the Canticle of Zechariah found in St. Luke’s Gospel has been speaking loudly to me. The Canticle begins, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel. For He has come to his people and set them free.” Each Christmas we celebrate with family, friends and with the Church the fact that God has come to his people and that he has set us free. What can that mean for us this Christmas?

During the month of November we celebrate the Day of Thanksgiving. The reality of being thankful expresses that every person is insufficient in himself or herself. Yet that need for others expressed through gratitude is at the core of being human.

On the afternoon of Aug. 25, around five o’clock, the power went out, the lights went out and everything became silent. The only noise was the elements of God’s creation: the wind, the rain and the rustling trees. The storm had begun. Hurricane Harvey was on his way.

My first column in the South Texas Catholic appeared nearly 20 years before Bishop Michael Mulvey asked me to take over the editor’s desk at the newspaper. This and other interesting personal facts I uncovered with our newest addition to the publication.

Here are three books (in no particular order) that I recommend for 2017. All are excellent and none require specialized knowledge or expertise.

On March 17, 2016, then-Secretary of State John F. Kerry announced to the world that the Islamic State was committing genocide against Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East. It was an important statement, because it was only the second time our government had declared genocide in an ongoing situation—the first was Darfur, where some estimate that more than 300,000 people have been killed to date.

Last month I wrote an article about my own mother in honor of Mother’s Day. It is only fair that I offer some reflections about my father in honor of Father’s Day. I return to the wall in my room with the family pictures on it. There is a photo of my father with his brother sharing a tricycle. What is interesting about the frame that houses it is that there are two pictures, one of my father and his brother and one of my older brother and me. By coincidence more than 20 years later, my brother and I are also sharing a “vehicle”, but it was my walking stroller. And there is no doubt that all four of us are related!

The month of May directs our attention to our mothers, our natural mothers and to Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church. This article gives me the opportunity to reflect on my own mother and the gift that mothers are to their children.

There is a thought in many sectors today that places an unhealthy emphasis on change. This mentality, more often than not, urges us to chase after the latest fads—whether it be in clothes, electronic or media gadgets, but also in ideology, political correctness or way of life. The allure is to be “with it” and “up with the times.” Everything seems to be about a supposed progress or moving forward as if the more “new” something is, the better it is and the better we are. The ironic thing is that this mentality itself is nothing new. Today’s fads quickly become tomorrow’s out-of-date trends, and we are on to pursue something new.

​​​​​​​Thanks to the Women’s March on Washington, which predictably devolved into a pro-abortion rally, and in the wake of the subsequent week’s annual March for Life, the debate between those who support and those who oppose keeping abortion legal in the U.S. is beginning anew. So it is worth debunking one of the most persistent (and lazy) myths about pro-lifers that impede an honest and open discussion: the notion that the pro-life community is not really pro-life.