There has been much criticism leveled at our basketball team’s tournament uniforms, some of it at a very high level. I suppose I can’t really blame the President of the United States for lashing out at us – after all, we keep suing him. But his disdain is only a mere fraction of the fulsome scorn heaped upon these vaguely mucosal sports togs by the Almighty Alumni. Yet, this sartorial experimentation should come as no surprise, since the football team dressed in uniforms of highly ...
Good Fridays w/Padre: Gamechanger
It was a scoreless first quarter. The Italian had run the ball well, but couldn’t get into the end zone, even with a strong American offensive line. Defensively they had been strong, though, preventing the Brazilian from scoring and even blocking a field goal attempt. ...
Good Fridays w/Padre: Fun&Games
At this very moment, Notre Dame students are packing their bags and preparing to depart Our Lady’s campus – not because they didn’t get enough playing time, but because it’s time to play. Spring Break has once again woken up, staggered onto the calendar, and with a bleary wink and a louche wave, beckoned our students to join in the revelries of its vernal rites. ...
Good Fridays w/Padre: Verses Versus
Take heart! All the signs point to it – Spring is near! It’s a new month, the month of rebirth: Easter, bunnies, and eggs. Camp Kelly is beginning; people are already making plans for the Blue & Gold Game. And the Pope emerged from his palace, saw his shadow, and flew to the hills. Everything old is soon to be new again, even if our blighted weather continues to oppress us. I recently picked up a book which I thought was a meditation on Indiana winters; it was called 50 Shades of ...
Good Fridays w/Padre: Chaplains
This week, the Michigan State football chaplain got himself in a bit of trouble for making a public boast about the Spartan basketball team, that was of questionable taste (to say the least). I know this is as much of a shock to you as it is to me – not that a priest has a filthy mouth, but that Michigan State athletes would welcome a man of God without trying to boil and eat him. I’m sure you also had the same initial suspicion that I had: a priest with low manners joining freely with our ...
Good Friday’s w/Padre: Pope Brian
I really must applaud the basketball lads for doing their best to fill the time in the bleak mid-winter. Not for them, a regular-old basketball game. No, our Notre Dame men are pushing their contests from long to longer and even to epochal – and by that I mean measured in geological time. It is a noble effort, but I fear it may be shortening their life-spans and those of the Leprechaun Legion, who did not see much daylight last Sunday after their own “exertions” on and off the court. ...
Good Fridays w/Padre: Mob Rules
Let me extend a hearty welcome to the Irish Mob! Admittedly, I am not in the habit of welcoming mobs, since I usually associate the word with the Paris Mob and that brings to mind the Reign of Terror. Not that I have any problem with our opponents suffering a four-year-long reign of terror as a result of our Irish Mob; but perhaps we could have chosen a more ethnically appropriate epithet for these lads – say, the Hooligan Crew. ...
Good Fridays w/Padre: OnlyHere
I still don’t entirely understand this elaborate process called “recruiting.” To me, it looks like Thai shadow puppetry, the way coaches and players chase each other around behind a screen until our new drop-everything-holiday, National Signing Day. Of course, people frequently remind me that what I used to call recruiting would now be classified as conscription at best, kidnapping at worst (get a lad to visit your Northern Indiana outpost, and then pretend the trains quit running because of ...
Good Fridays w/Padre: Lessons
It’s been an interesting couple of weeks, to say the least. Here are a few ways my eyes have been opened, a few points I have pondered, a few insights I’ve gained: - The head football coach should be a CSC. He doesn’t have to be a priest. The key is that he take a vow of obedience. ...
Good Fridays w/Padre: Confession
A priest absolutely cannot ever reveal anything he hears or says in Confession. If he does, he incurs the penalty of excommunication Latae Sententiae – that’s Latin for ‘you’re out, you’re done, don’t let the church door hit you in the…’ So a priest would never discuss the contents of an actual Confession. But we can consider the more important points of a hypothetical Confession. The Elements of a Confession That Never Actually Took Place, between a Priest and a Theoretical Notre Dame ...