Recently, Chicago has been the target market for a campaign of billboards and bus placards sponsored by the Freedom From Religion Foundation which advocate a dismissal of all things religious. Father Barron offers his thoughts on this initiative here:
I have no particular political objection to the recent advertising campaign launched by atheists and agnostics, which involves placards on the side of buses urging religious people to sleep in on Sunday morning and stop wasting their time going to church. I mean, it’s a free country, and people can express their views publicly, even on controversial matters. But what I object to is the stupidity of the view that’s being advocated...

In today's
Gospel reading from Matthew, Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray, giving them the words of the Lord's Prayer. Read below for a refection from Father Barron on prayer from his book,
Word on Fire. You can also listen to his
homily regarding this particular Bible passage.
“How should we pray? What makes prayer efficacious? Why does it seem that some prayers are answered and others are not? How does prayer 'work'? These are questions that come, not simply from theoreticians of religion, but from religious people, ordinary believers. Studies indicate that we are a nation of pray-ers, yet we struggle rather mightily with the mechanics, meaning, and practicalities of prayer. The Bible, or course, witnesses constantly to the centrality of prayer. What binds together figures as diverse as Noah, Moses, Jacob, Abraham, Jeremiah, Daniel, King Hezekiah, Queen Esther, Peter, and Paul is that they all pray—and not provisionally, occasionally, or perfunctorily, but consistently and as an expression of their deepest selves. And, of course, Jesus prays and famously teaches his disciples to pray…"

Dr. Denis McNamara weighs in on another beautiful Cathedral that represents both the aesthetic and theological beauty of Catholicism, the Cathedral of Toledo. Watch the video here on the Word on Fire Blog.
Be sure to follow along for updates on the Catholicism Project Pilgrimage Page!