February 27, 2026

Editorial

The joy of seeing people embrace their faith in public

It should be inspiring when we see people unafraid to publicly display their faith.

And it happened earlier this month on Ash Wednesday which, ironically, is not a holy day of obligation in our Catholic tradition.

Many churches—Catholic and others—had good attendance on Feb. 18 as people of faith wanted to begin Lent with Christ at the forefront of this important liturgical season.

There were local and national TV anchors and reporters who wore ashes on their foreheads on news programs. In supermarkets, post offices and other places of business, ashes were evident among many customers. Even walking down a busy downtown street, many passed businessmen and women who displayed ashes.

We thank God that many of our brothers and sisters—Catholic and non-Catholic alike—still see religion as an integral part of their lives.

As we’ve written before, in today’s culture, we are encouraged to live our faith inside our churches and our homes, but to shy away from sharing it beyond those places.

Politicians, government officials and others may not like it, but we believe we need to continually let them know that sharing our beliefs in the public square is among the most important duties we have as disciples of Jesus Christ.

If we do not, who will?

—Mike Krokos

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