One of the most critical Issues facing American Catholicism is the quality of Its priestly leadership. There are many how-to resources on pastoral techniques, but very few on spiritual leadership. The author defines spiritual leadership as the ability to influence people internally to move from where they are to where God wants them to be and pastoral leadership as the ability to skillfully use the rites, rules and rituals of the Church to make that happen. Seminaries spend a lion share of their time emphasizing personal piety, but priests today must not only be good personally, they must be...

Uno de los temas mas criticos que enfrenta el catolicismo americano es la calidad de su liderazgo sacerdotal. Hay muchos recursos instructivos sobre tecnicas pastorales, pero muy pocos en el liderazgo espiritual. El autor define liderazgo pastoral y liderazgo espiritual como la capacidad de influir en la gente internamente para moverse de donde estan a donde Dios quiere ser como la capacidad de utilizar habilmente los ritos, reglas y rituales de la iglesia para que eso suceda. Seminarios pasan la mayor parte de su tiempo haciendo hincapie en la piedad personal, pero los sacerdotes hoy no solo...

The Blue Christmas Mass is a tradition begun in 2011 at Our Lady of the Woods Chapel by Fr. Ronald Knott, chaplain at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Ky. It was the result of an article he wrote for The Record which noted that for many the Christmas season can be more depressing than uplifting. "Not everybody finds this time of year to be a happy time. People lose relatives, parents lose children. For a lot of people there is a great deal of sadness. Some people, because of their personal experiences, just dread the arrival of the holidays. Then they go to Midnight Mass and that kind of...