Tom O'Toole column
Thomas Augustine O'Toole was born in Chicago and grew up in a devout Catholic family with five brothers and two sisters. He was the sports editor of Notre Dame's Scholastic magazine, where his story "Reflections on the Game" won the award for Best Sports Feature for the Indiana Collegiate Press Association.
Besides his work as a columnist for several suburban newspapers, Tom O'Toole is also a popular freelance writer for many Catholic magazines, including Columbia, The Catholic Faith, Queen of All Hearts, and Culture Wars.
His innovative writings on the connection between faith and sports ("Cathletics") has been praised by the Papal Nuncio, and his groundbreaking book Champions of Faith: Catholic Sports Heroes Tell Their Stories is one of the original volumes to be placed on the Vatican shelves where the Pontifical Council of Church and Sport meet. In 2006, Tom published a number of articles on the prestigious Catholic Exchange website, and started his blog Fighting Irish Thomas, which has been praised for its Catholic candor and humor.
Tom O'Toole lives in Elmhurst, Illinois, with his wife Jeanette. They have four children. He can be reached at tacotoole@gmail.com
Besides his work as a columnist for several suburban newspapers, Tom O'Toole is also a popular freelance writer for many Catholic magazines, including Columbia, The Catholic Faith, Queen of All Hearts, and Culture Wars.
His innovative writings on the connection between faith and sports ("Cathletics") has been praised by the Papal Nuncio, and his groundbreaking book Champions of Faith: Catholic Sports Heroes Tell Their Stories is one of the original volumes to be placed on the Vatican shelves where the Pontifical Council of Church and Sport meet. In 2006, Tom published a number of articles on the prestigious Catholic Exchange website, and started his blog Fighting Irish Thomas, which has been praised for its Catholic candor and humor.
Tom O'Toole lives in Elmhurst, Illinois, with his wife Jeanette. They have four children. He can be reached at tacotoole@gmail.com
Subscribe to Tom's columnTom O'Toole
February 2, 2012
[H]usband and wife become in a way one heart and one soul...marriage is a love that is total...[M]arriage must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to . . .
Tom O'Toole
January 25, 2012
(Article by Jeanette O'Toole, Tom's wife)
"Let me repeat in the clearest words in my disposal. There is no stopping abortion without an ocean of grace from . . .
Tom O'Toole
January 24, 2012
"I said many, many times that one of the reasons Joe was hanging on to that position is because if he left, he'd die...I knew Joe very well, and it was a very . . .
Tom O'Toole
January 19, 2012
Reprinted on Spero News.
"I beat Governor Romney very clearly [in polls] head to head. It's not just about coalescing around a conservative, but coalescing . . .
Tom O'Toole
January 8, 2012
"In the days of doubts, in the days of oppressive reflections concerning the destiny of my native land, you alone are my strength and staff, O great, mighty, . . .
Tom O'Toole
January 3, 2012
For Zion's sake I will not be silent,
for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet,
Until her vindication shines forth like the dawn
and her victory like a . . .
Tom O'Toole
December 31, 2011
Father,
the Holy Innocents offered you praise
by the death they suffered for Christ.
May our lives bear witness
to the faith we profess with our lips.
We . . .
Tom O'Toole
December 28, 2011
"How sweet can a person be? She had a little body, but the heart of a lion." -Rick Santorum, on the death of Wendy Jensen, his most dedicated volunteer
. . .
Tom O'Toole
December 24, 2011
"Family is the bedrock of society. Unless we protect it with the institution of marriage, our country will fall." -Senator Rick Santorum
"Many voters like . . .
Tom O'Toole
December 19, 2011
Dear Tom,
Thank you very much for your letter. I really appreciated the article you sent. It is easy to see why you are successful, because you pay great . . .
Tom O'Toole
September 6, 2011
Reprinted on Spero News.
"Cheer, Cheer for old Notre Dame
Wake up the echoes cheering her name,
Send the volley cheer on high,
Shake down the thunder from . . .
Tom O'Toole
August 17, 2011
Reprinted on Spero News.
"I guarantee you that once you take up this book you will not put it down until the end of the world. Here is a meaty page-turner . . .
Tom O'Toole
August 12, 2011
Reprinted on Spero News.
With greater privilege comes a greater duty to serve. — Lizzy Seeberg
On the statue [of Lizzy at ND] idea — powerful, . . .
Tom O'Toole
August 2, 2011
Reprinted on Spero News.
I am "anonymous" from 7-10-11.
Your response was well written but singularly focused. As with attacking Father Corapi, you spent . . .
Tom O'Toole
July 24, 2011
"It's sad to see the Roman Catholics feed on each other like this. How unsavory! As a Lutheran, I find it more important to look for the positive Christian . . .
Tom O'Toole
July 20, 2011
Reprinted on Spero News.
"We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to . . .
Tom O'Toole
July 10, 2011
Reprinted on Spero News.
"I have never had promiscuous or even inappropriate relations with her...I never paid anyone off to remain silent...I resigned . . .
Tom O'Toole
July 8, 2011
Reprinted on Spero News.
"Fighting Irish Thomas seems to be the only one covering this story. The Register in this week's issue covers it and they are about . . .
Tom O'Toole
July 5, 2011
Reprinted on Spero News.
"He took my cell phone...grabbed my face and started kissing me...he pulled down my tank top and touched my breasts...tears ran down . . .
Tom O'Toole
July 2, 2011
Reprinted on Spero News.
"It's almost always wrong for a cleric to sue a congregant. It's especially wrong when a priest sues someone who is making sexual . . .
Tom O'Toole
June 23, 2011
Reprinted on Spero News.
For twenty years I was called "father"...now [I'm] "The Black Sheep Dog." — John Corapi, from his June 17th "Black Sheep Dog" . . .
Tom O'Toole
June 20, 2011
The Catholic college...should be a community of students and teachers centered on Christ...The marrow of a Catholic college is not a system of thought, but a . . .
Tom O'Toole
April 5, 2011
Reprinted on Spero News.
"Statement of Santa Cruz Media, Inc. Relative to Fr. Corapi's Suspension [email newsletter, 3-25-11 (and currently posted on . . .
Tom O'Toole
April 4, 2011
Reprinted on Spero News.
"A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. So many gathered that there was no . . .
Tom O'Toole
April 2, 2011
Reprinted on Spero News.
"Can he [the patriot] hate it enough to change it, and yet love it enough to think it worth changing? Can he look up at its colossal . . .
Tom O'Toole
March 31, 2011
Reprinted from Fighting Irish Thomas, 3-31-07.
Reprinted on Spero News.
The date was 3-31-31. While there was, on that same date, an earthquake in . . .
Tom O'Toole
March 27, 2011
On Ash Wednesday I learned that a former employee sent a three-page letter to several bishops accusing me of everything from drug addiction to multiple sexual . . .
Tom O'Toole
March 18, 2011
The following poem is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of its characters to actual persons is entirely coincidental.
"When an evil spirit comes out of a . . .
Tom O'Toole
February 21, 2011
Reprinted on Spero News.
You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped; you were too strong for me, and you triumphed. All the day I am an object of . . .
Tom O'Toole
February 3, 2011
I take full responsibility for my own poor judgment, my weakness and my sinful conduct that resulted...[in] one particularly complex situation...[that] led me . . .
Tom O'Toole
January 29, 2011
Please also see ... Euteneuer update.
Please also see ... Demonic Abortion review.
Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word . . .
Tom O'Toole
January 18, 2011
Almighty and eternal God, behold, I approach the Sacrament of Thine only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ...as one who is sick to the physician of life.. . . .
Tom O'Toole
January 14, 2011
"It is proper for the noblest hearts to discover the most urgent need of their epoch and to consecrate themselves to it." — Father Lacordaire, a famous . . .
Tom O'Toole
January 6, 2011
"Clearly we are gaining confidence...we've beaten some good football teams late in the year." — Notre Dame Head Coach Brian Kelly, after the Irish's Sun . . .
Tom O'Toole
December 30, 2010
"That encounter with President Obama served as a reminder to me of why Americans are so frustrated with Washington: the feds focus on the wrong things. . . .
Tom O'Toole
December 24, 2010
"I've got to go, Rock. It's all right, I'm not afraid. But sometime when the team is up against it...and the breaks are beating the boys...tell them to win just . . .
Tom O'Toole
December 1, 2010
One month ago, when Notre Dame undergrad Declan Sullivan fell to his death filming a football practice when a fierce wind flung his youthful frame from the far . . .
Tom O'Toole
September 5, 2010
Originally published in Culture Wars, May 2010, Vol. 29, No. 6
"...All readers will be moved by this honest, riveting, and exceedingly well-written story of . . .
Tom O'Toole
August 31, 2010
"There is, however, another angle. For many people, Notre Dame symbolized more than just 'the Catholic thing.' It symbolized the need — in a culture of . . .
Tom O'Toole
August 18, 2010
"If gay marriage becomes law, it is the end...of Christian civilization" — future pro-life saint, Father Paul Marx, founder of Human Life International.
"The . . .
Tom O'Toole
August 11, 2010
"The University is where the Church does its thinking" — former president of Notre Dame, Fr. Theodore M. Hesburgh.
"The Catholic university today must be a . . .
Tom O'Toole
July 18, 2010
"The abandonment of truth by universities of whatever type affects the culture. As relativism and agnosticism filter into that culture from the universities, . . .
Tom O'Toole
July 2, 2010
"Many well-grounded complaints have been made about religious literature on the score that it tends to minimize the importance and dignity of life here and now . . .
Tom O'Toole
June 24, 2010
"The priority for our players is to recognize they are at the University of Notre Dame to play for Our Lady" — new head football coach of Notre Dame, Brian . . .
Tom O'Toole
June 19, 2010
"I live in Louisiana and Gov. Jindal is WONDERFUL...during Ike and Katrina, the poor man did not sleep for days...we have seen pictures of him leaving mass with . . .
Tom O'Toole
June 17, 2010
"Joy is the net by which you capture souls."
"If you judge people, you have no time to love them." — Mother Teresa
"I used to censor myself...now I wake up . . .
Tom O'Toole
June 2, 2010
As President Obama finally arrived and conquered the shores of Louisiana Friday, trying to sound regal while stealing some of the better oil spill ideas of Gov. . . .
Tom O'Toole
May 28, 2010
Switching back and forth between CNN and Fox News last night, I found that when it came to the Gulf Oil Spill, the two usually contrary channels agreed on two . . .
Tom O'Toole
May 20, 2010
"I think Jesus was a compassionate, super intelligent gay man who understood human problems" — Elton John.
"Have you not read that from the beginning the . . .
Tom O'Toole
May 8, 2010
"Your Days are Numbered" — The threatening words left on an anonymous note to Professor Roger Knight and several of his colleagues.
Sham Rock, Ralph . . .
Tom O'Toole
May 1, 2010
First, it was Father Jenkins openly defying the United States Council of Catholic Bishops (of which Chicago's Cardinal Francis George is president) by letting . . .
Tom O'Toole
April 28, 2010
"It's been a while since I saw a priest here in a Roman Collar. Except Fr. Hesburgh, but he's not on campus much since his retirement."
"So you're at Notre . . .
Tom O'Toole
March 7, 2010
Pro-life leader, Randall Terry, in conjunction with the group Vanguard of St. Catherine of Sienna, is heading to Rome, March 10, for a week of meetings with a . . .
Tom O'Toole
March 1, 2010
Although I suppose I've come to expect a certain backlash whenever I write about the very visible (as opposed to "virtual") prolific antics of pro-life . . .
Tom O'Toole
February 18, 2010
"I don't love her, I don't hate her — for her, I don't feel very much at all
But blood that we both shared and spilled
Keeps turning up like writing on the . . .
Tom O'Toole
February 2, 2010
Joseph: [desperately] Look at all those woman entering the abortion clinic!
Mary: [pleadingly, as she fingers her rosary] Oh Joseph! Who will save them?
. . .
Tom O'Toole
December 22, 2009
"I feel cheated!" my wife Jeanette lamented (no pun intended) as the Tiger Woods saga snowballed from a minor traffic accident into a major infidelity scandal. . . .
Tom O'Toole
June 1, 2009
It was wrong — ironic and wrong on so many levels. Dr. George Tiller, the hardcore abortion doctor who killed so many babies (and a few women) worshiping in a . . .
Tom O'Toole
May 25, 2009
In my last of a series of reflections on Barack Obama's Notre Dame appearance, I will focus on the speech itself and Fr. Jenkins' words (and lies) leading up to . . .
Tom O'Toole
May 23, 2009
Having had time now to look back at the events leading up to, as well as President Barack Obama's actual appearance (or shall we say "performance") at the . . .
Tom O'Toole
May 13, 2009
Do you want to offer yourselves to God, to endure all the sufferings He may allow, as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended and as a . . .
Tom O'Toole
May 12, 2009
Bishop D'Arcy
Fort Wayne Chancery
1103 S. Calhoun Street
Fort Wayne, IN 46801
Dear Bishop D'Arcy,
First, I'd like to congratulate you for speaking . . .
Tom O'Toole
May 2, 2009
Dear Mr. President,
Congratulations on your first 100 days. While we don't always see eye-to-eye on the issues (for example, I believe pro-choice people . . .
Tom O'Toole
April 15, 2009
Recently on FOX News I saw Kathleen Donahue, Notre Dame student and head of Notre Dame Right to Life, fend off questions about Obama's upcoming visit. And, . . .
Tom O'Toole
April 12, 2009
In remembrance of abortion's helpless victims, I am sharing my poem "The Blood of the Young Patriots," written shortly after 9-11, for your Easter consideration . . .
Tom O'Toole
April 9, 2009
"What's the matter with you guys? You're all Irish and you're not fighting!"
— Notre Dame halfback Pete Vaughan's 1909 halftime speech vs. Michigan; also . . .
Tom O'Toole
April 6, 2009
"Magna est veritas et prevalebit." (Truth is great and it will prevail.)
— The motto on Notre Dame's Laetare . . .
Tom O'Toole
April 2, 2009
"But don't you think people who hate Notre Dame can't accept this notion that so many Notre Dame players and fans say that praying to God helps the team to play . . .
Tom O'Toole
March 31, 2009
"In the past generation, it was Buffalo Bill. For this generation, it was Knute Rockne. The boy had a great respect for Rockne, and Rockne for the boy. Each . . .
Tom O'Toole
March 30, 2009
While taking an English course to attain my teaching certification at Elmhurst College (a local liberal arts school), I got into a debate with my professor. It . . .
Tom O'Toole
March 27, 2009
"Presidents from both parties have come to [give the commencement address] at Notre Dame ... we're delighted that President Obama is continuing that tradition." . . .
Tom O'Toole
March 20, 2009
When it comes to evil prophecies (i.e. Obama elected president, AND today's news that the spineless president of my Christian alma mater has indeed secured . . .
Tom O'Toole
February 1, 2009
With strong believers on both sides of the ball in today's big football game (although I'm personally pullin' for that back-from-the-dead former Arena Leaguer . . .
Tom O'Toole
January 16, 2009
About a week ago when I was surfing the Net about the upcoming "Big Event" (the Inauguration of the Obama-nation), I stumbled across the news that President . . .
Tom O'Toole
January 8, 2009
Largely due to a technicality, the United States Senate on Tuesday refused to admit Roland Burris, former Illinois State Comptroller and the ridiculous pick of . . .
Tom O'Toole
January 3, 2009
When she died last summer at the age of 87, it's doubtful my mother-in-law, Genevieve Ohlin, had even heard of her holy namesake, St. Genevieve of Paris. First . . .
Tom O'Toole
December 31, 2008
Reading the announcement yesterday of the Dec. 27th birth of Sarah Palin's 18-year-old unwed daughter Bristol's baby, it dredged up memories of the many . . .
Tom O'Toole
December 29, 2008
In the Catholic Church, each day's liturgy brings a different celebration or commemoration, either from the life of Christ or that of a saint or martyr who . . .
Tom O'Toole
December 27, 2008
Certainly, Notre Dame's decisive 49-21 Hawaiian Bowl victory over the host Hawaii Warriors accomplished volumes just on the Fightin' Irish football surface. . . .
Tom O'Toole
December 23, 2008
While it's fair to say I'm not the most qualified to judge President-elect Obama's choices for the Interior (I was never much for decorating) or the Treasury . . .
Tom O'Toole
December 21, 2008
Having just turned five years old, I was a little young (at least back then) to question the "holiday" law-of-the-land. Of course five-year-olds believed in . . .
Tom O'Toole
December 20, 2008
On the surface, something about Barack Obama picking Rick Warren to give his inauguration invocation seemed fishy. I mean, Warren was the man responsible for . . .
