McGrath Institute Blog

Editorial Note: This fall, we're featuring profiles of people who are or have been part of the Echo program in the McGrath Institute for Church Life. Echo provides students the opportunity to earn a Master's degree from Notre Dame while gaining real-world experience in parish ministry or teaching high school theology, all while receiving robust spiritual and human formation.

This past Saturday, tens of thousands of people crowded into St. Peter's Square in Rome to celebrate as Pope Francis canonized five new saints. Read on to learn about their remarkable lives.

An essential part of living a consistent ethic of life is the need to re-humanize the everyday. One might be think, “Re-humanize the everyday?! What we need is the legal protection of the unborn, gun control, the abolition of the death penalty, and sensible, humane immigration legislation!” And one would be exactly right. Our nation desperately needs these sweeping legal changes. Along with this, perhaps even more than this, we need people who live a consistent ethic of life

As a moral theology teacher at a Catholic high school and moderator of our school's pro-life club, people expect me to teach my students about a Catholic ethic of life. I do, certainly, and conversing with young people about key life issues is incredibly rewarding (albeit challenging!). But just as faith and prayer should permeate every aspect of a Catholic school—and not be relegated to its theology curriculum and ministry programs—the same is true of a Catholic vision of human life and dignity.

Over a kosher breakfast several months ago, a good friend and I—both new mothers and in transitory phases of life—speculated about where we might eventually settle down and what our ideal geographical and social living situations would look like.