Jews vs. Catholic Basketball Game (10 Years Ago This Weekend) This weekend is the 10th anniversary of the Jews vs. Catholics basketball game that Rabbi Yisroel Wilhelm and I started as chaplains of University of Colorado in Boulder. (You can see how young I looked in my first year of my priesthood  in 2011.) Catholic News Agency covered the story 10 years ago in Boulder: Although the idea began as a joke, and still elicits laughter from students, an April 17 “Jews versus Catholics” basketball game has a serious purpose for the priest and the rabbi who organized it as a form of outreach to their communities' non-practicing members. “These [...]

When my father was only 10 months old, on the 9th of February 1942, my grandfather wrote him a letter that I found and saved to my Evernote.  It begins: Just how to begin this, I do not know, but perhaps if I just write down the thought in my heart you shall see what I have in mind. To begin with, this idea of putting every day events into a sort of letter to you, our children, occured to me long before your Mother and I were married, for I did know that some day with Gods wish we would have you, and I your mother. Therefore I shall [...]

Changing My Habits This is what I looked like in a Roman Collar for most of my priesthood: Here's an example of the vestments I wore when I was doing Mass in English (and other languages) in 2015: After Holy Mass in the Basilica of St. James of Campostella in Santiago, Spain after finishing the Camino in 2015. Here's an example of the vestments I wore after switching to the Traditional Latin Mass: After Holy Mass at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Jacksonville, Florida. This was my last active assignment (2018) before becoming a diocesan hermit. My first religious habit as a hermit was [...]

Mission One The last time I was in California was last year, but several trips are worth recounting here that shaped my ten years of priesthood.  First, during the summer of 2012 (when I had been a priest for only two years) I led a group of university (and barely post-university) students on a trip called Bike for the Unborn (BFU) where we rode our bikes up the missions of Southern and Central California to raise money for the unborn and their plight in this country.  By "missions," I mean we visited the ancient Churches founded by Bl. Junipero Serra, the great Spaniard Franciscan known as the "founder of California."  That [...]