Don't focus on the family: Julie Hanlon Rubio on family ethics

By A U.S. Catholic interview| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Marriage and Family Social Justice
Are full family schedules masking emptiness of spirit? A Catholic ethicist and suburban mom challenges families to make time for the really important stuff.

Because Julie Hanlon Rubio’s father was a civil rights attorney, the family’s dinner table discussions during her childhood often revolved around his work. “Just having that consciousness rather than always talking about our own lives was important for all of us,” she says.

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Crying uncle: A priest plays dad

By Father Richard G. Malloy, S.J.| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Marriage and Family
No one can strike terror in the heart of a grownup quite like a 16-year-old girl.

Many people call me "Father" (I'm a Catholic priest), but I've only had three days of on-the-job experience as a full-time parent. My sister and brother-in-law took their oldest off to college and asked me to watch the other three, ages 16, 13, and 9, for a few days.

Father Richard G. Malloy, S.J. teaches at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia and is author of A Faith That Frees: Catholic Matters for the 21st Century (Orbis, 2007). See more posts by Father Richard G. Malloy, S.J.

How to protect our children from sexual abuse

By Dolores Curran| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Marriage and Family Parish Life
Preventing child sexual abuse begins with talking to your children about it. Dolores Curran provides some strategies to help.
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Heart to heart: Mary and motherhood

By Ginny Kubitz Moyer| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Marriage and Family
Fact: Parents worry about their kids every day. No one knows this more than Mary.

As a kid in Catholic school, I grew up learning a lot about Mary. She was the Mother of God and the mother of all people everywhere. She wore a white dress and a blue veil and had a serene, dreamy expression. She also had a visible heart, one crowned with flames and pierced with swords.

Ginny Kubitz Moyer is the author of Mary and Me: Catholic Women Reflect on the Mother of God (St. Anthony Messenger, 2008).

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We've got Spirit! Learning from evangelicals

By Heather Grennan Gary| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Ecumenical & Interfaith Dialogue Young Adults
Catholics can learn a thing or two from our evangelical sisters and brothers.

On a Thursday night last September, Scott Sroda found himself at Primetime, a weekly program at the University of Wisconsin at Madison sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ. Sroda, a freshman and a Catholic from Janesville, Wisconsin, tagged along with a sophomore friend from home who was also Catholic but who had been in a Crusade Bible study the year before.

Heather Grennan Gary is a former editor of U.S. Catholic.

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Catholic with an evangelical twist

By Online editor| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Ecumenical & Interfaith Dialogue Young Adults
Learning from evangelicals isn’t as simple as introducing praise and worship music and talking about a personal relationship with Christ at your next youth group meeting.

Donna Freitas, a theologian and author of Sex and the Soul: Juggling Sexuality, Spirituality, Romance, and Religion on America’s College Campuses (Oxford University Press), has spent a lot of time with both Catholic and evangelical youth and has a few tips to keep in mind:

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Ground rules for a peaceful home

By Michelle Bearden| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Marriage and Family Young Adults

With more adult children moving back home with their parents due to the economy, experts agree: Establish guidelines in advance to avoid arguments down the road. Communication is the first key keeping everybody happy. Here are tips to ease the transition of the new living arrangements.

For parents:

Michelle Bearden covers faith and values for the Tampa Tribune and WFLA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Tampa, Florida.

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Coming home to roost: "Boomerang" kids move back in with their parents

By Michelle Bearden| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Marriage and Family Young Adults
So your son graduated from college, can’t find a job, and needs a place to live—what’s a parent to do?

The first time Mark Bolich Jr. stayed out all night, he faced his not-too-happy parents the next morning.

"You could have called," they admonished him. "You could have sent us a text message. We were worried about you."

Michelle Bearden covers faith and values for the Tampa Tribune and WFLA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Tampa, Florida.

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Go outside and play

By Kevin Clarke| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Environment
Falls and fresh air can teach kids the most important lessons of faith and life.

If you want peace, cultivate creation," Pope Benedict XVI said in his 2010 World Day of Peace reflection, arguably a message not just for the new year but for the new decade. With one sentence Benedict adroitly tied together a gang of the major preoccupations of Catholic social teaching with Pope Paul VI's radical 1972 admonishment: "If you want peace, work for justice."

Kevin Clarke is a writer living in New York.

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Will work for peace in everyday life

By Heather Grennan Gary| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Social Justice War and Peace Young Adults

For Heidi Tousignant, the faith-formation director from Minnesota, having studied peace in college relates directly to some of her most important-and unpaid-work. As a parent "it absolutely enhances my vision of how to raise kids," she says. It's influenced her family's conversations, their values, their faith life, the decisions they make as a family, and what action they take in their community.

Heather Grennan Gary is a former editor of U.S. Catholic.

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