Jon M. Sweeney

Nicholas Black Elk (left) and Eagle Elk stand in Our Lady of the Sioux Church on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in the early 1900s.

My mantra:

“If you can’t pray, at least say your prayers.” George Bernanos

This may be the publishing rom-com you haven’t seen. It’s fun. Bette Davis as a magazine editor in 1948.

OK, now write the article about all the rabbis and Jewish leaders who supported him in his vision for the future.

Or would that not be clickable enough?

Access to the sacraments is the tip of the iceberg. They won't allow clergy access bc they aren't running a proper detention facility. The scandal that religious protests are highlighting is not that the detainees' religious rights are being violated, but that ALL their rights are being violated.

If you’re interested in the best of religion and spirituality, here are some of the books I’ve been reading. www.spiritualityandpractice.com/books/

Al-Jāḥiẓ: Arabic scholar of the Qur'an and Greek philosophy, great 9th century writer, might be the only writer in history who was killed by his books. A massive stack in his Basra library fell on him.📚#bookhistory

Self-publishing history. Dickens published A Tale of Two Cities in his periodical. Melville, Hardy, and Twain all subsidized early works, paying publishers to issue them. And Leonard and Virginia Woolf started Hogarth Press to publish Virginia's fiction that was too innovative for mainstream houses.

Catalogers of used books used to refer to bindings like this one as ‘shaken.’ In other words, well read. I gravitate toward them.

“The most ignorant Person…may write Books in Philosophy, Poetry, Politicks, Laws, Mathematicks, and Theology, without the least assistance from Genius or Study.”

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

"Love does not make you weak; it is the source of all strength. When you begin to love you see the nothingness of the illusory strength you once depended on." Leon Bloy

Very cool! And I'm told that anyone can join.

"The Boston College Faith Feeds Book Club offers a sacred space to explore Christian books and engage in virtual conversations with the authors who inspire them. Our next feature book and author is..." www.bc.edu/content/bc-w...

Save the date? Milwaukee- at the Capuchin Spiritual Center - on January 10 to learn practical ways of encountering God in daily life according to the experiences of St. Francis of Assisi.

Or, come to my event at @boswellbooks.bsky.social the night before, Jan. 9: www.eventbrite.com/e/jon-m-swee...

I love the simple typography of this book jacket. I always find Updike interesting, often frustrating, but this is a beautifully edited and produced book by @AAKnopf.

I keep thinking about Mr. Brown, the 45-year-old man who I registered to vote 5 years ago on this day in Milwaukee. He leaned toward me and said, “I can’t read.” Imagine the courage that required! So we read him the ballot and he voted for the first time.

7 years ago today Fr. Thomas Keating was buried at St. Joseph's Abbey/Spencer.

Nine years ago, when my kid was in kindergarten, I remember asking after school what she enjoyed most and she said, "Most of all I like the scienceing, when we go outside and do observations."

Franciscan Sisters transfer land to Lac du Flambeau tribe in bid to repair boarding school legacy In a historic moment, the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration have completed the first known land transfer nationwide from a Catholic instituti...

Well done, FSPA! www.wpr.org/news/francis...

I recently got around to watching all of Homeland, and it was so cool at the end of the final season how Carrie Mathison needed to understand Tauchnitz Editions of British authors in order to decipher the identity of the upper level Russian spy.

you know the internet might just shut down someday when advertisers realize no one cares or even sees their ads because when i'm trying to look at the weather to see when it's supposed to stop raining it's not as if i pause or look to say wow what cute boots those are

Speaker Johnson says clergy protesting deportations have no right to 'get in the face' of DHS agents Johnson initially claimed he was not aware of the instances, despite having been directly asked about one of the incidents in a press conference earlier this month.

Speaker Johnson says clergy protesting deportations have no right to 'get in the face' of DHS agents www.ncronline.org/news/speaker...

Halloween is no ungodly American import – just ask the medieval monks and nuns who marketed it | Michael Carter During the feast of All Hallows’ Eve, supernatural tales were a way of promoting prayer for the salvation of suffering souls, says Dr Michael Carter, an English Heritage curator

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

After a famed Canadian author exits a U.S. tour, a Vermont library enters with an alternative - VTDigger Bestselling mystery writer Louise Penny hopes a weekend reading at the border-straddling Haskell Free Library and Opera House will show “what happens politically is one thing, and transitory. What hap...

After a famed Canadian author exits a U.S. tour, a Vermont library enters with an alternative vtdigger.org/2025/10/30/a...

I'm grateful that the Vermont governor & legislators acted to prevent Vermont children & families from going hungry.

Now Trump must obey the law & release $5 billion in emergency SNAP funding appropriated by Congress.

The richest country on Earth shouldn't be facing a hunger crisis.

YouTube video by Focolare Media The Legacy of Nostra Aetate - Living City Conversation

A good conversation yesterday youtube.com/watch?v=wD3i...

I devoured this in college! Hadn’t seen one in a dust jacket for a very long time.

We are all friendlier after we’ve been fed.

Very sad to see that St. John's Anglican Church in Black River, Jamaica, was destroyed in yesterday's Hurricane Melissa.

Pope Leo: The message of 'Nostra aetate' remains as urgent as ever - Vatican News Pope Leo XIV presides at “Walking Together in Hope,” a celebration of 60 years of “Nostra aetate”, the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on ...

www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news...

Today, in the cold almost-November soil, we planted a cherry tree and a peach tree. It's about hope.