Father John Hollowell

We hear in our first reading today from the book of Wisdom: “I prayed, and prudence was given me; I pleaded, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.  I preferred her to scepter and throne, and deemed riches nothing in comparison with her.” A lot of times, people reach out to me and asking what they should do in a specific situation.  And in so many of those instances I have to say “I don’t know.  You are the only one, in conversation with God, who will know what the best decision is.” The Catholic Church is thought of as telling everyone how to act in every situation, and that just is not the case.  Of course on every topic that seems to dominate our national conversation at the moment, the Church does have very black and white answers: it is never okay to kill a child in the womb, sexual activity is only proper in a marriage, marriage is only between one man and one woman, contraception is never justified, there are only 2 sexes, it is never good to look at pornography… and so the Church, in saying these eter