Craig Taffaro Jr. was ordained for the Archdiocese of New Orleans in 2018 as a permanent deacon, but in many ways, his life as a Catholic may be defined...

It’s an “Only in America” story on steroids, sprinkled liberally with a few gallons of holy water.

A few years ago when the Archdiocese of New Orleans was hosting a Morning of Men’s Spirituality, one of the organizers...

Gary LeBlanc was sitting in a chair outside a priest’s office. His life had cratered. His marriage was about as down the drain as the morning coffee grounds. 

​​​​​​​The odds were excellent that Louisiana, designated by many as the “most pro-life state” in the nation, would be the main protagonist in the most important abortion industry case to be heard in years by the U.S. Supreme Court...

The words “human trafficking” often evoke images of Asian, Russian or Filipino girls being smuggled across the country in chains for forced sexual encounters.

Dr. Ansel Augustine was minding his own business – navigating potholes while driving to a Saints’ preseason game last August....

As I watched the Super Bowl halftime show last Sunday, there was an eerie visual, and, no, I’m not talking about the pole dancing or wardrobe malfunctions....

Maureen Wright considered herself one of those blessed Catholics who had just about everything – a loving husband, a beautiful daughter and enough scientific degrees that with any .....

Story and Photo By Peter Finney Jr., Clarion Herald Commentary Not surprisingly, our children and grandchildren have it all figured out. Last year, the Clarion Herald thought it would be....

A few months after Archbishop Gregory Aymond returned to New Orleans in 2009, he took a look at the end-of-the-year work schedule for those serving in....

2019 arrived and departed in a flash, more quickly than the pages of a calendar flipping in the breeze in an old black-and-white film. In honor of my dad, who each year in The Times-Picayune would compile a list of sports predictions for the coming year, what follows is a baptized version of Nostradamus-on-demand. Red-crayon Xs for the misses; green-crayon checks for the hits. (Nostradamus of the Bayou is in such a festive Christmas mood he offers some bonus picks, starting Dec. 28, 2019.)

If there is a College Football Playoff selection committee for Catholic Church musical seasons – actually, be assured that “God so loved the world that he did not send a committee” – the obvious No. 1 and No. 1a seeds are Advent/Christmas and Easter.

Finding bargains, especially during the run-up to Christmas, can be especially invigorating. Keith John Paul Horcasitas, whose first professional job was as a social worker for Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans in the 1980s, discovered that eight years ago when he accompanied his brother-in-law, Dale Pederson, on something Pederson told him was a “storage auction.”

It was 1982, and Concepcion Pequeño of Kenner was dying. Concepcion’s husband Joaquin had passed away 10 months earlier, and, now, the widow and mother of nine adult children was consumed with just one thought: Who would care for her 25-year-old daughter Norma, her youngest, who was born with Down syndrome in 1957 and had lived with her parents for her entire life.

The ink was barely dry on Dr. David Capuzzi’s doctorate in counseling at Florida State University when, as a 25-year-old “beginning counselor,” he met a 19-year-old freshman who was struggling mightily with issues of low self-esteem.

It was Aug. 28, 1963, and Ronnie Moore, a freshly minted, 22-year-old civil rights activist from New Orleans, was sitting inside a Donaldsonville jail along with 300 others arrested for participating in a voting rights demonstration for African Americans in Plaquemine, near Baton Rouge.

St. Ignatius was on to something foundational about the spiritual life. In the 1500s, the founder of the Jesuits – and the Spiritual Exercises – insisted that his new colleagues use a daily “examen” to review what they had done or what had happened to them during that day, and they should never forget gratitude – being grateful for those graces, small and large, they had received from God.

This is a story of two buildings. Every Mardi Gras, when we were little, the six Finney kids would pile into my parents’ blue-and-white Volkswagen bus, drive downtown and park as close as possible to Lafayette Square.

During his 37 years as the founding pastor of Holy Spirit Church in Algiers, 90-year-old Msgr. Allen Roy – who has always  preferred to be called “Father” Roy – discovered a great way of getting to know his parishioners on a first-name basis.