Anna Caruso

One of the most painful experiences in life is the to be disappointed by some person in whom we have truly believed.  Sooner or later that happens to everyone.  For most it begins in childhood, with the discovery that our parents are not perfect.  They are only people with the same weaknesses and problems that afflict us all.  Then later we learn that teachers do not always know all the answers. To experience this kind of disappointment in people is part of the process of growing up.  But it does not end with childhood.  It carries over into adult life […]

Do you know that a sickness of the soul, no less than a sickness of the body, can become a chronic condition?  Look for a moment into your own life and tell me if this isn’t true.  Could you not put your finger on an unhealthy spiritual condition that has remained unimproved year after year?  It doesn’t take an expert to analyze this kind of problem; all it takes is honesty. Were you touchy, overly sensitive and difficult to live with years ago?  Look at that area of your life today.  Has anything changed?  Has the condition improved at all?  […]

In the middle years of the nineteenth century, a clergyman named Charles Kingsley was the personal chaplain to Queen Victoria of England.  He was a man whom she greatly admired.  The story is told that one day she asked him the secret of his beautiful life.  To which he replied, “I had a friend.” Most of us would not think of describing our own lives as beautiful.  And we would probably be embarrassed if someone else should do so.  But we would doubtless agree with him that whatever beauty there is within us is largely attributable to our friends.  People […]

Today I raise an important question: Is it proper for a Catholic to vote precisely as a Catholic?  That is, to make political choices based primarily on Catholic values and principles?  I would answer Yes.  Emphatically, Yes! We Catholics, have let our secular society in which we live give us a kind of inferiority complex.  We too often speak and act as if the biblical understanding of man and woman and for that matter, of human society, were in some way inferior, or as if it were somehow unfair for us to advance our Catholic views and values in the […]

When Harry Truman was president of the United States, his daughter, Margaret, was aspiring to a career in opera.  The music critics had written some rather discouraging things about her future in that particular field.  Finally, she went to a specialist for an assessment of her chances to become an opera star.  After several days of evaluation, the specialist gave her opinion.  She said to Miss Truman, “You have a beautiful voice.  It is big enough and rich enough for opera.  The problem is with your ear.  And because of your ear, you will never attain greatness.” Maybe that same […]