Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial December 24, 2009 Each year the joy of Christmas is contextualized by the remembrance of those whom Christian tradition has called the Holy Innocents, the male infants two years old and younger who were...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep December 24, 2009 St. John Vianney always loved the major feasts of our faith, but Christmas in particular filled him with extraordinary joy. In the tiny baby Jesus lying in the manger, the Curé...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial December 18, 2009 Even though President Barack Obama admitted that his accomplishments up until now have been “slight” and that he couldn’t argue with those who would have found others “far more deserving” of...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep December 18, 2009 Because of his work in the confessional, preaching on conversion, heroic life of fasting and little sleep, battles against the devil, and crusades against indecent dancing and...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial December 11, 2009 On the day American Catholics celebrated Thanksgiving, Catholics in Ireland marked what should be called Ash Thursday, the first day of what portends to be a long ecclesial Lent. On November...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep December 11, 2009 Within this year-long series of articles on St. John Vianney, the 150th of whose birth into eternal life provided the occasion for Pope Benedict to declare the Year for Priests...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial December 4, 2009 Later in this edition, we print in full a remarkable declaration of American Christians— clergy and lay, Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical— that is a brilliant analysis of the ongoing series...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep December 4, 2009 Last week we discussed how demanding St. John Vianney was in requiring a firm purpose of amendment from those who came to him to receive the Sacrament of Penance. For a confession...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial November 27, 2009 In a November 20 letter to U.S. Senators about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s 2,074 page health care reform bill, Cardinal Daniel Dinardo, Bishop William Murphy and Bishop John Wester...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep November 27, 2009 In the last two weeks, we’ve discussed how St. John Vianney would try to help people to make better confessions. He began by teaching them how to examine their consciences more...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial November 20, 2009 After the death of Senator Edward Kennedy, we argued that among the lessons needing to be learned from the history of the Church’s interaction with “pro-choice” Catholic politicians on...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep November 20, 2009 Last week, we began to look at how St. John Vianney, once he got his parishioners to return to the Sacrament of Penance, sought to help them get more out of it. His strategy was...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial November 13, 2009 Two weeks ago New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan captured the attention of Catholics across the country by writing a compelling critique of recent examples of anti-Catholicism in the New York...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep November 13, 2009 During his fruitful decades as the Curé of Ars, St. John Vianney not only labored to get his people to come to confession but to help them become good and better penitents. In...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial November 6, 2009 We discussed last week the very positive development of Pope Benedict’s decision to establish personal ordinariates for Anglican faithful and clergy seeking full communion with the Catholic...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep November 6, 2009 Last week we examined how St. John Vianney used his pulpit to draw people to God in the confessional. Through his homilies at Mass and his catechetical lessons for kids and...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial October 30, 2009 Pope Benedict’s decision to create a relatively easy and straightforward canonical pathway for Anglicans who share the Catholic faith to enter the Catholic Church is one of the most...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep October 30, 2009 Last week, we examined one of the reasons why St. John Vianney’s confessional became the most besieged one in the history of the Church: he prayed and sacrificed so much for...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial October 23, 2009 Last week we mentioned the increasingly firm statements of the leaders of the U.S. bishops that unless President Barack Obama actually make good on his September 9 promise to the American...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep October 23, 2009 A few weeks ago, when I began this miniseries on St. John Vianney as a confessor, I asked why so many men and women from throughout France made enormous sacrifices to get to the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial October 16, 2009 Eight days ago, the U.S. bishops drew a line in the sand on health care reform. Three of the bishops who have been most actively involved in the health care debate — Cardinal Justin Rigali of...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep October 16, 2009 A priest classmate recently told me that whenever he preaches about confession, he now talks primarily about how much he personally needs confession. He said that this one of the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial October 9, 2009 Last week, in our continuing survey of Catholic analysis of the present health care reform proposals, we began an examination of the “Principles of Catholic Social Teaching and Health Care...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep October 9, 2009 Last week, we focused on the “great miracle” of St. John Vianney’s confessional, to which prodigal sons and daughters from all over France flocked to be embraced by the merciful...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial October 2, 2009 In our continuing survey of Catholic analysis of the present health care reform proposals, we turn this week to the most comprehensive analysis to be issued by any of the U.S. Bishops, a joint...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep October 2, 2009 “The great miracle of the Curé of Ars,” one of his contemporaries said during the process for beatification “was his confessional, besieged day and night.” The fundamental reason...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial September 25, 2009 The debate about health care reform continues to occupy much of the nation’s attention, as well it should, considering the gravity of the need for reform and the magnitude of the proposed...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep September 25, 2009 Two weeks ago, we looked at how St. John Vianney’s whole life was transformed into a prayer. Last Friday, we examined what he taught his parishioners about prayer in general...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial September 18, 2009 The funeral rites of Senator Edward Kennedy generated a lot of controversy. Cardinal Sean O’Malley, in an entry on his weekly blog, told us very clearly why: “Needless to say, the Senator’s...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep September 18, 2009 Last week we looked at how St. John Vianney, the patron saint of priests, was an example of “an existence made prayer.” The focus of all his pastoral work in Ars was to help his...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial September 11, 2009 Last week, our editorial argued that one of the most important lessons pastors of the Church in the United States need to draw from the history of interactions with Senator Ted Kennedy on...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep September 11, 2009 In a catechesis on July 1, Pope Benedict declared what is the “first task” and “the true path of sanctification” for a Christian — prayer — and why St. John Vianney is so...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial September 4, 2009 There is no debating that Senator Edward Kennedy lived a highly consequential life. Over the span of his 47-year career in the Senate, he became one of the nation’s most effective and...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep September 4, 2009 The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council taught that Jesus in the Eucharist is meant to be the “source and the summit of the Christian life.” In other words, for a life to be...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial August 28, 2009 As we wrote about earlier this month, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, on behalf of the U.S. Bishops, has specified two main areas of concern with respect to the health care reforms...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep August 28, 2009 The most important part of St. John Vianney’s efforts to convert his parish in Ars was to help his people to recover a sense of the sacred importance of the Lord’s Day. The fathers...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial August 21, 2009 Last Friday in Hyannis the Church celebrated the funeral of a truly remarkable, faithful and strong Catholic woman who was the personification of the Good Samaritan toward those with special...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep August 21, 2009 Last week we focused in general on the heroic prayer, penance and preaching St. John Vianney engaged in to bring about the total conversion of his parish. Like any good shepherd...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial August 14, 2009 In his recent encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict dedicates five paragraphs to how a proper understanding of and care for the environment is essential for the integral development...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep August 14, 2009 When Fr. John Vianney was notified that he was being sent to Ars, three years after his priestly ordination, his vicar general told him, “There is not much love for God in that...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial August 7, 2009 Everyone knows that our health care system is in need of reform. Rising costs are crippling the budgets of families, small businesses and even large corporations. Insurance plans are charging...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep August 7, 2009 Sacred Scripture abounds in examples of how God has repeatedly taken the least and made them great in salvation history. Abraham was a childless octogenarian who became the father...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial July 17, 2009 “To the bishops, priests and deacons, men and women religious, the lay faithful and all people of good will.” That’s how Pope Benedict addresses his third encyclical, Caritas in Veritate...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep July 17, 2009 The future patron saint of priests, John Vianney, never desired merely to be a priest. He hungered to be a truly holy priest. One of the greatest means God used to help him learn the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial July 10, 2009 On June 28, when Pope Benedict concluded the Year of St. Paul at the Basilica outside the walls in Rome, most of the headlines generated centered on his announcement that tests on the bones...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep July 10, 2009 A few years ago, as I was preaching at the first Mass of Thanksgiving of a newly ordained priest, I made reference to a quotation of the Curé of Ars that, prior to my ordination...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial July 3, 2009 Most Americans can cite or at least paraphrase by memory the celebrated phrase of the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep July 3, 2009 I begin today a series of articles on St. John Vianney, the Curé or pastor of Ars, who was declared by Pope Pius XI in 1929 the patron saint of parish priests and who, during this...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial June 26, 2009 We have come to the end of the Year of St. Paul, in which the whole Church, celebrating the 2000th anniversary of the great apostle’s birth, has focused on learning to imitate him as he imitated...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep June 26, 2009 When Pope Benedict announced on March 16 that he was declaring a Year of the Priesthood, my first reaction was total joy. I love these ecclesiastical years which do for the Mystical...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial June 19, 2009 Today we begin the Year of the Priesthood on the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Pope Benedict XVI called for this year back on March 16 to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep June 19, 2009 A few weeks ago, I was interviewed for a story on fatherhood by the National Catholic Register. The reporter noted that Father’s Day this year occurs the day before the Church...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial June 5, 2009 In the days leading up to the celebration of Pentecost, the traditional birthday of the Church, Pope Benedict gave his yearly address to the annual synod for the Diocese of Rome. The theme of...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep June 12, 2009 Throughout this year of St. Paul, as I’ve had the chance to go through the details and the writings of the great apostle anew in greater depth, I have often returned to one figure...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial June 5, 2009 Since abortion doctor George Tiller was murdered on Sunday during a worship service at Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, the reaction of the vast majority of people on both sides of the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep June 5, 2009 I have always had a great devotion to the martyrs and for this reason, June has always been a special month. We begin the month with the memorials of Saints Justin, Marcellinus and...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial May 29, 2009 Ever since Jesus’ brief valedictory address when he said, “Go … and teach all nations” (Mt 28:18), education has always been among the Church’s highest priorities and greatest glories. Christian...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep May 29, 2009 For the past few decades, the popes have been trying to inspire Catholics to take up their role in the re-evangelization of areas where the Church was once strong but where now the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial May 22, 2009 Twice in the past two months, we have described why Notre Dame’s decision to honor President Barack Obama by granting him an honorary doctorate of law and by inviting him to deliver its...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep May 22, 2009 When I was in Louisiana in March, I made my second pilgrimage to the parish church dedicated to St. Landry in Opelousas. The last time I had been there was ten years ago, ten days...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep August 21, 2009 Last week we focused in general on the heroic prayer, penance and preaching St. John Vianney engaged in to bring about the total conversion of his parish. Like any good shepherd...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial May 15, 2009 Over the past week, a scandal has ripped through the heart of Spanish-speaking Catholicism and spilled over into the national network morning television programs. At the center of it is Fr...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep May 15, 2009 I spent the summer of 1996 in Portugal, where Bishop O’Malley sent me to study Portuguese at the University of Lisbon. Among the many highlights and memories from that time was the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial May 8, 2009 Four weeks ago we wrote on the symbolic messages the University of Notre Dame was giving Catholics and non-Catholics in the country by inviting President Barack Obama to give its May 17...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep May 8, 2009 Over the next week, as Pope Benedict is in the Holy Land visiting the principal sites of our redemption, any of us who have had the privilege of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial May 1, 2009 The Fourth Sunday of Easter, traditionally called Good Shepherd Sunday because each year at Mass the Gospel is about Jesus’ self-identification as the Good Shepherd, is the annual occasion of the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep May 1, 2009 Ten days ago the Church marked the 900th anniversary of the birth into eternal life of the man Pope Benedict calls “one of the most luminous figures in the tradition of the Church and...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial April 24, 2009 Last September, Stonehill College and the Diocese of Fall River sponsored an important symposium entitled, “Apostolic Religious Life since Vatican II … Reclaiming the Treasure: Bishops...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep April 24, 2009 Last Wednesday, I was in the capital of the world for the installation of Archbishop Timothy Dolan as the new shepherd of the Archdiocese of New York. Prior to the Mass, as I was...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial April 17, 2009 A year ago, Pope Benedict was in the midst of his apostolic pilgrimage to the United States to lead us in spiritual renewal on the theme of “Christ our Hope.” In his visits with Christians in...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep April 17, 2009 When I first entered Mount St. Mary’s seminary in Maryland, I met some fellow seminarians with a devotion to the Divine Mercy. They would often get together and recite the chaplet...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial April 10, 2009 For the first several years of his preaching of the Gospel, St. Paul for the most part ducked the subject of the Cross. With Jews, he preached on how Jesus was the fulfillment of all the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep April 10, 2009 One of the most moving moments of Pope Benedict’s recent trip to Africa was when he stopped at the Cardinal Léger Center in Yaounde, Cameroon on March 19. The center, founded in...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial April 3, 2009 On Sunday, we will all listen to St. Mark’s account of the Passion. We will recall Judas’ perfidy, the failure of Peter, James and John to stay awake in prayerful vigil with the Lord in his...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep April 3, 2009 One of my great joys is to preach retreats and parish missions. In my first decade as a priest, I’ve given about 30 of them, to priests, seminarians, religious sisters and cloistered...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial March 27, 2009 Over the last few decades, our society has made great progress against discrimination and harassment in the work place. The rights that flow from workers’ human dignity have been increasingly...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep March 27, 2009 Last Friday and Saturday, the Diocese of Fall River held its first ever Diocesan Reconciliation Weekend. As priests stepped into their confessionals and reconciliation rooms across...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial March 20, 2009 On March 10, Pope Benedict sent the bishops of the world a letter (see p. 18) clarifying his January 21 gesture of reconciliation toward the four validly but illicitly ordained bishops of the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep March 20, 2009 In his beautiful 1984 Apostolic Exhortation on the Sacrament of Penance entitled “Reconciliation and Penance,” Pope John Paul II names four “extraordinary apostles of the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial March 13, 2009 President Obama’s Monday executive order to lift President Bush’s 2001 ban on using our tax money to fund the destruction of human embryos for embryonic stem cell research is a disgraceful...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep March 13, 2009 We are celebrating this year the 150th anniversary of the birth into eternal life of the patron saint of parish priests, St. John Vianney (1786-1859. The Curé of the tiny French...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial March 6, 2009 There’s a necessarily prophetic dimension to the proclamation of the faith. While the Gospel is fundamentally, supremely and not merely etymologically “good news” — a jubilant “yes” to the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep March 6, 2009 During my seminary years, my parents would come to Rome to visit each February when plane fares would drop to as low as $300 round-trip. I would always arrange for them to stay...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial February 27, 2009 During the past two weeks in Florida and Arizona, the world’s greatest baseball players have been fielding ground balls, catching pop ups, laying down bunts, working on pick-off moves...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep February 27, 2009 I sang a Te Deum early Monday morning when, after years of speculation, Pope Benedict named Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee as the Archbishop of New York. With many of my...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial February 20, 2009 Everyone agrees that Nadya Suleman did something wrong. Where the debate begins is over what she did wrong, why it was wrong, and what our society needs to do to prevent its recurrence. The...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep February 20, 2009 On Sunday night, the Academy Awards will be given out. It is the most important feast of the liturgical year for our culture’s new idolatry: the worship of celebrities. It begins...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial February 13, 2009 We are now in the midst of a campaign by the four Massachusetts dioceses to strengthen Catholic marriages entitled “The Future Depends on Love.” This week is a good opportunity — coming as...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep February 13, 2009 There’s something beautiful about St. Valentine’s Day. It’s a day on which romantic love is justly celebrated and couples feel inspired to show their affection for each other in...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial February 6, 2009 In his great priestly prayer on the night he was betrayed, Jesus implored his Father that all the disciples would be one as the persons of the Blessed Trinity are one. He said that their...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep February 6, 2009 Next Thursday we celebrate the bicentennial of the birth of the greatest president ever to serve our country. He has long been considered great on account of his most notable...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial January 30, 2009 We are concluding Catholic Schools Week, which is an annual opportunity for the Church in the United States to focus on our young people and to remember that not only is the future of the...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep January 30, 2009 This Sunday we will all get a chance to focus on a true hero whose impressive athletic exploits are eclipsed by his personal accomplishments. Here in New England, we can sometimes...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial January 23, 2009 This Sunday we celebrate one of the highlights of the Year of St. Paul now underway: his dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus. Pope Benedict has both authorized and encouraged Catholic...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep January 23, 2009 Three years ago this Sunday, Pope Benedict published his first encyclical letter, Deus Caritas Est, about the love of God that we are called to receive and to share. In it he...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial January 16, 2009 Last week we focused on the general outlook of Dignitas Personae, the December instruction of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on bioethical issues at the beginning of...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep January 16, 2009 On Tuesday I traveled to Immaculate Conception Church in Manhattan for the funeral of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, founder and editor-in-chief of First Things magazine, author of...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial January 9, 2009 During Advent, as the attention of the Christian world was meditating anew on how the Word of God had taken on our nature, was conceived as an embryo in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Putting Into the Deep January 9, 2009 100 years ago today in Carracastle in County Mayo, Patrick Joseph Peyton was born, the sixth of nine children. Like so many born in Ireland at the beginning of the 20th century, he...
Fr. Roger J. Landry The Anchor Editorial January 9, 2009 During Advent, as the attention of the Christian world was meditating anew on how the Word of God had taken on our nature, was conceived as an embryo in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary...