As editors, we’re fortunate to work with a collective of talented writers, photographers, copy editors, and artists. Without their contributions, we wouldn’t have a magazine. I’d like to feature one in particular: Dr. Richard Patterson, who authored the “Catholics and Gun Control” article in this month’s issue.
Dr. Patterson has been a contributor to St. Anthony Messenger for some years now. In his tenure with us, he has written about welcoming home veterans, self-forgiveness, moral injury, and wounded healers. As a clinical psychologist and trauma therapist, Dr. Patterson is uniquely positioned to tackle these very human issues.
But it’s his voice that rings loudest with me. He doesn’t write with a judgmental pen. Dr. Patterson guides the reader into a shared experience. He recognizes, rightly, that we’re all broken in some measure. We just want healing.
Dr. Patterson’s efforts have not gone unacknowledged. His January 2019 cover story for us, “The Death Penalty and the Myth of Closure,” tackled a thorny subject in a way that was holistic, hopeful, and very Franciscan. For that article, he won an award from the Catholic Press Association.
Thank you, Dr. Patterson, for doing your part to heal a wounded world.
