On June 21, the eve of the memorial of Ss. John Fisher and Thomas More, we begin a period of prayer, sacrifice and public witness for the cause of religious liberty. I join my brothers in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in calling for this “Fortnight for Freedom,” which will run until July 4, the memorial of our country’s independence.

Religious liberty is a precious freedom. Sadly, it’s also a rare freedom. Three out of four people worldwide live in a country where the government doesn’t protect their right to worship and serve the God they believe in.

Christians…

Some years back, a good book for dads came out — “A Father’s Covenant,” by Stephen Gabriel (HarperCollins, 1996).

The book is a series of little sayings and promises for fathers to meditate on to help them grow in their relationships with their children, their wives and God.

One of these promises made me laugh: “I will play Chutes and Ladders with enthusiasm!”

That reminded me of my childhood. That’s a game my father used to play with us all the time!
And there is real wisdom in that promise.

It’s a promise to be faithful to the duty of being a father. The…

The anti-Catholic persecutions in Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s are long forgotten, it seems.
The reality is hard to believe. Just a generation ago, not far from our borders, thousands of men, women and even children, were imprisoned, exiled, tortured and murdered. All for the “crime” of believing in Jesus Christ and wanting to live by their faith in him.

So I welcome the new film, “For Greater Glory.” It tells the dramatic story of this unknown war against religion and our Church’s heroic resistance. It’s a strong film with a timely message. It reminds us that our religious…

In the two Sundays that follow Pentecost, our Church asks us to reflect on the two central mysteries of our Catholic faith.

So last Sunday we celebrated the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. This Sunday we will contemplate Corpus Christi — the mystery of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, the Eucharist.

The Church gives us these feasts as a kind of summary of our identity as Catholics.

Jesus promised that he and his Father would send their Spirit of truth to his Church. He said the Spirit would guide us to understand the deeper purposes of his mission and teachings….

The Church Father, Origen, said that when we are near to Jesus we are “near to the fire.” This expression comes to my mind in these days before Pentecost.

At Pentecost, Jesus sent his Spirit down upon Mary and the apostles in tongues of fire that parted and came to rest on the head of each one of them.

The fire of the Holy Spirit reveals the nearness of Jesus. He has ascended into the highest heavens, but we don’t have to go there to find him. Pentecost reminds us that he is always near to us — dwelling in our hearts and in our Church — through the gift of his Spirit.

At…

Several years ago, I was blessed to attend the annual World Meeting of Families when it was held in Mexico City.

I can still remember the final Mass. The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe was filled to overflowing with people young and old from all over the world. Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI made a special address to us at the end of the Mass through a live video link-up.

I’m praying this week for our Holy Father, as he gets ready to attend the seventh annual World Meeting of Families, which is being held this year in Milan, May 30–June 3.

Our world — and our American…

I always love this time of year, these days and weeks that follow Easter.

In the Church’s calendar, Lent is the season for Christian conversion. It leads to the new Baptisms we celebrate at the Easter Vigil, and the renewal of our baptismal promises. We associate these weeks after Easter with Confirmation — the sacrament of our Christian discipleship and our sharing in the Church’s apostolic mission.

So now that I’m back from Rome, that’s what I’ve been doing. Our Auxiliary Bishops and I are traveling to parishes across our Archdiocese to confer this powerful sacrament of…

We have a new “blessed” in our universal Church — and she once lived right here in Los Angeles.

Blessed María Inés Teresa Arias was beatified late last month in Mexico City. Her story is beautiful because it is so ordinary.

Manuelita, as she was known, was born in 1904, and grew up in a large Catholic family in Nayarit, Mexico. She used to go to daily Mass with her father and she worked in a bank. She was active in her church and in helping the poor. She had a fun social life.

When Manuelita was 20, a cousin gave her St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s autobiography, “Story of…

We are back from Rome! But my mind keeps returning to different moments of our beautiful pilgrimage “to the threshold” of the apostles’ tombs.

My brother bishops and I had the blessing to be able to celebrate the Holy Eucharist at the tombs of both St. Peter and St. Paul. And our weeklong “ad limina” visit for me was a profound experience of our communion with the universal Roman Catholic Church.

Saints Peter and Paul are the first pillars of our Church. Peter was “the rock” on which Jesus chose to build his Church and the shepherd he chose to feed his people. Paul was…

Easter greetings from Rome! I’m here with my brother bishops this week for our “ad limina” visits.

Bishops are required to come to Rome once every five years or so to meet with the Pope and give an account of the Catholic faith in their dioceses. So we’re here along with the other bishops of California and the bishops of Hawaii and Nevada.

The Latin words ad limina refer to going to “the threshold” of the tombs of the apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul. And these visits symbolize our respect for the Pope, who is St. Peter’s successor as head of the college of bishops and…