As activists push President Joe Biden to commute existing federal death sentences during his final months in office, a new report by the Death Penalty Information Center examined what it called persistent racial disparities in federal death penalty prosecutions.

The solution for competing solemnities is to transfer the liturgical celebration of the non-Sunday holy day to the first subsequent available date. Thus, in the year 2024, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is celebrated in our liturgy on Monday, Dec. 9.

Lady of letters Gertrude Stein once famously observed of Oakland, Calif., the city in which she was raised, “There is no there there.” As it turns out, there’s not much there to the drama “Here” (TriStar), either.

As one of the perpetual pilgrims who traveled with him for the entire two months, I got to experience the adventure of a lifetime.

For those of us who have been united through baptism to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the last day of each of our lives does not fade away into eternal night but opens onto a new day, at the height of which we will rest in the glorious splendor of the perpetual light of God, every moment of our lives on this earth held in his eternal memory.