Tom Shakely

Chief Communications Officer @ArlingtonChurch. Paige Comstock Cunningham Senior Fellow @AUL. PhD Candidate, Politics @CatholicUniv. President @MtNittany.

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Connecting young people to digital networks serves no purpose if they remain disconnected from themselves, others, and their own interiority. We must help young people rediscover silence, reflection, the ability to ask questions, the depth of relationships, and openness to transcendence. To listen to the soul, we must lend an ear, because the soul's voice is not a shout, but a whisper.

[Thomas Mirus @CatholicPods]

"Laypeople should learn to love their vocation to the world. It is by means of this vocation that they render eternity present in their time. They must believe that God has entrusted the world and all that is in it to their care that they may be led to eternal salvation. They must firmly believe that salvation comes only from God, but that they also have an active cooperation in this work. They must live in hope and share it with others." Ven. Francis-Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan

[Tom Shakely @TomShakely]

@MichaelPakaluk @maryricehasson Very helpful! Thank you.

[Clare Anne Ath @clareanneath]

My kids have been on long-haul flights, to bars & wineries, and nice restaurants.

Meltdowns happen. We go anyway.

Exposure builds kids who know how to be in the world.

Stop hiding your children. Start bringing them everywhere.

[Tom Shakely @TomShakely]

@reaganreese_ @MaryMargOlohan Truly incredible.

[Tom Shakely @TomShakely]

@cantdon @StevenHAdenAUL We have just launched https://t.co/s3ThnCZMCD in the Catholic Diocese of Arlington and are encouraging all to “pledge to vote” immediately.

[Joshua Charles🇻🇦 @JoshuaTCharles]

“We are to be servants of the coming Kingdom, instead of lords of towers destined for ruin.”

Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas (par. 16) (May 15, 2026)

[Joshua Charles🇻🇦 @JoshuaTCharles]

“To eliminate suffering entirely would mean, in the end, extinguishing love and desire as well. Those who love and desire cannot avoid passing through trial and suffering; and over the years, we carry within us lessons that leave their mark like scars, the memories of a journey shaped by freedom and failure, dreams and disappointments.

It is only thanks to the interplay of these elements that the wonders of the soul occur within us, allowing us to sense the richness of our humanity.

To renounce this adventure, both tragic and splendid, in the name of a presumed transcendence of all limits, could mean many things, but it would no longer be human.”

Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas (par. 120) (May 15, 2026)

[Catholic Diocese of Arlington @arlingtonchurch]

Christians may feel tempted to avoid politics. Yet, all are called to faithful citizenship. “Christian Citizenship and the Virtue of Patriotism” with @ccpecknold is available now, exclusively on Porta Fidei—and completely free.

Through this course, learn why God cares about politics. Learn why proclaiming the Gospel is essential for our nation and our moral development as citizens. And learn why true patriotism is a virtue.

As America prepares to commemorate its Semiquincentennial, it’s a natural time for Catholics to strive to grow by God’s grace.

Start the Course: https://t.co/pVGurSYuep

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

A massive 2019 Lancet study tracked more than 8 million people across 7 countries and found a clear pattern. More greenery near a person's home meant lower risk of dying early, by about 4 percent for every small increase. A deck with a tree view counts. And that is just one of about six studies that all point the same way.

The EPA says the average American spends 90 percent of their life indoors, where the air runs 2 to 5 times more polluted than the air outside, and sometimes more than 100 times. So most of your breathing happens in the worst air available. A screened porch is the cheapest way to fix that without giving the porch back to rain and mosquitoes.

The stress effect is just as concrete. Researchers at the University of Michigan ran a 2019 study in Frontiers in Psychology and found that 20 to 30 minutes in any natural setting dropped cortisol (your body's main stress hormone) at its greatest rate. They called it a "nature pill" and twenty minutes was the sweet spot, even without a forest or a long walk.

Dr. Qing Li's lab in Japan ran the immune system experiments. His team published in the International Journal of Immunopathology and Pharmacology, showing that forest exposure boosts natural killer cells, the white blood cells your body uses to take out tumor cells and infected cells, by around 50 percent after a 3-day trip, with the boost lasting at least a week. The trigger is partly phytoncides, plant chemicals that trees release into the air around the clock. You inhale them every time you sit outside near greenery.

Hospital data goes back to 1984. Roger Ulrich published a paper in Science that year showing that surgical patients with a window view of trees went home roughly a day earlier than the ones staring at a brick wall in the same hospital after the same operation. They also asked for fewer painkillers. Three to five minutes of looking at a tree was enough to start lowering blood pressure.

A screened deck quietly hits all of these levers at the same time. The CDC also notes that intact screens are one of the best protections against mosquito-borne illnesses like West Nile, which kills roughly 10 percent of people who develop the brain-affecting form.

Enclosing a deck is every nature study from the last 40 years quietly stacking on top of each other.

[Arouca Press @AroucaPress]

“Theological terms have a meaningless ring to the post-Christian world. We have to show, by example and explanation, that we have a comprehensive view of life which makes for joy and which will renew society. We have to show Christian principles in the concrete, working; and Christians believing what they teach and practicing it. Secularism is society’s mortal disease because it separates religion from life. Our synthesis will save society by reintegrating religion and life. May we accomplish it soon, and so bring all men to Christ.”

—Carol Jackson Robinson

[The White House @WhiteHouse]

Finally a one-stop home for all the resources needed for expectant mothers including nutrition, pregnancy support, life saving care and more. 🩷🇺🇸

Visit https://t.co/SuYznQeQuN

[Joseph Nolla, SJ @josephnollasj]

“The Hail Mary repeated in the Holy Rosary is an act of love. Isn’t it precisely love to tirelessly repeat: ‘I love you’?”

-Pope Leo XIV

[Tod Worner @ThinkerCatholic]

What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.
—Flannery O’Connor

[Tom Shakely @TomShakely]

@itsdavemartin @josephscott Tremendous! One flag: I set up a site and tried to connect a subdomain. The post/delete functions appear to fail when the subdomain is set as the primary domain.

[Jamie Marsland - Head of WordPress YouTube ❤️ @pootlepress]

https://t.co/42557SvxJW

[Palmer Luckey @PalmerLuckey]

One of the reasons homeschooled kids have superior educational outcomes is avoiding the slow-progress-across-all-subjects method public schools impose on every student, no matter how they learn.

The evaluation/testing you are talking about would almost certainly prohibit that sort of tailored education, especially since they would be designed and administered by a system that wants to eliminate homeschooling in almost all cases.

[Become A Saint @BeSaintly]

Goodbye = God be with you

Holy smoke = election of a Pope

Breakfast = break the fast

Holiday = Holy Day

People have forgotten who they are, they don’t even know what the words they are saying actually mean.

[Congressman Brandon Gill @RepBrandonGill]

Today I asked an abortion advocate what her favorite method of abortion is.

[Vatican News @VaticanNews]

Pope Leo XIV encourages Christian lawmakers to allow the Gospel to guide their decisions and help people overcome the fear of starting a family.

https://t.co/Xsf0PaGsg2