My 14-year-old son, Liam, fixed his eyes on mine and tearfully choked out, “Mom I want to go home.” On the surface, his comment made no sense. We had just returned home the day before from Tennessee, where Liam got to visit his long-distance best friend. I never saw that …

At a glance, you may look at friendship and say it’s not necessary for day-to-day life. It’s just “nice to have.” And the truth is… it’s not necessary. We could certainly live, breathe, and survive without friendship, just like we could live without music or art. But even though we …

By Perry West Denver, Colo., Mar 21, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- The policy of social distancing means that the newly-homebound are seeing less of coworkers than they did just weeks ago. They’re seeing fewer friends too. But they might be seeing a lot more of their family, or their …

I love barbecue. Seriously, my heart yearns for it. Owensboro, KY, where I’m from, is actually the epicenter of a unique variety: mutton barbecue. Mutton is meat from sheep around three years old, as opposed to lamb, which is meat from sheep less than a year old. It starts out …

By Perry West Denver, Colo., Dec 23, 2019 / 07:00 pm (CNA).- The phenomenon is well-documented. When young Catholics go away to college, a troublingly high percentage of them stop practicing their faith. And many who stop going to Mass in college never return. Initiatives like FOCUS, and Newman Centers …

Next year, the men in my family will celebrate an important milestone: 25 years of going on an annual camping trip together. When it all started, my dad and uncle were there, but the rest of us were just boys. We idolized the grown-ups for their ability to pitch a …