Mike Jordan Laskey

The Hold Steady's "The Price of Progress" promotes the communitarian values of Craig Finn's Catholicism and professes a clear belief about the world: The only way to make it through life is together.

Damar Hamlin's story underlines an essential point we fans often forget: The players we enjoy watching are real human beings, not faceless sources of our entertainment. American football so often obscures this truth.

While "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" certainly grabs our attention with popcorn-flick fun and spectacle, it transcends its genre to become a masterwork of social satire.

I hope the U.S. soccer team's diversity encourages us to advocate for an immigration system that treats each and every person who seeks a better life here as if they were the biggest soccer stars on earth.

The work for environmental justice can feel overwhelming because there is so much to do. But banning gas-powered leaf blowers is a slam dunk on a 4-foot kiddie basketball hoop.

TV review: In his three-season sitcom, comedian Joe Pera shows how here's no detail too small to be worth noticing if you have a sacramental imagination, because every detail could be a place to find the transcendent.

Good things can and do happen to bad organizations: The Astros have made it to the World Series again. But in the opposing dugout, you'll find the Astros' polar opposite. Let's cheer for the loveable underdog Phillies.

NCR interviews Muffet McGraw, who retired last year after 33 seasons leading the Notre Dame women's basketball team. Her new book tells women to Expect More!, in keeping with her long advocacy for women's leadership.

The Gospel of Sports: My friend Chris is a passionate yet levelheaded college football fan. As I've been thinking about the season that might not happen this fall, I asked him to help me process everything.

Young Voices: St. Ignatius of Loyola's path is a great model. As we near his feast day, I pray for a refusal to let potential embarrassment stop me from learning something new and trying again. 

Young Voices: The Catholic vision of freedom is countercultural in our individualistic, consumerist society. And it often feels like we cede the concept to those who argue that freedom is the liberty to do what you want.

Young Voices: My wife and I are isolating with three kids aged 4 and under. For nerve-fraying days, here's my incomplete alphabetical index of things I'm grateful for that are helping me through this time.

Young Voices: Maybe I'll try other self-care things next week, but this is where I'm starting. The threat of a loneliness epidemic is real, but we have blessed technology to at least head that off for a while.

Young Voices: Life with three young kids feels like the movie "Groundhog Day." I'm trying to embrace it.

Think of this less as a true "25 best prayers" list, which is impossible for any human to assemble, and more of a "25 prayers that brought me closer to God over the past 10 years" list.

The Gospel of Sports: I was suckered in by the NBA's apparent wokeness. But since a general manager got chastised for supporting Hong Kong protesters, I've been reflecting on where I turn for moral leadership.

Young Voices: Monday was among the most disheartening days on Catholic Twitter that I have ever seen, if not the very worst. Still, I think it's worthwhile, and I have some personal rules that help keep it so.

The Gospel of Sports: Paying college athletes is an issue that Catholics ought to consider with a Sports Illustrated in one hand and the last 120 years of papal writings on human labor in the other.

Young Voices: There's a strong temptation to try to shoehorn the church's moral and social justice teachings into our preferred political party platform instead of letting our faith dictate our political priorities.

Young Voices: I like the idea that Catholics don't belong to congregations but to parishes, but times are different now. Parishes are closing or merging, making ties weaker.