Mollie Wilson O'Reilly
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mollieoreilly.bsky.social
Mollie Wilson O'Reilly
@mollieoreilly.bsky.social
3.3K followers 780 following 3.7K posts
Editor at large for Commonweal magazine; writing at https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/users/mollie-wilson-oreilly-0 and sometimes other places, too. She/her.
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mollieoreilly.bsky.social
Update on today's field trip: ya girl got a plenary indulgence AND a cute tee; excellent pilgrimage opportunity, IMO! cabrinishrinenyc.org
Selfie of just my torso wearing a heathered, cerulean t-shirt with a white outline portrait of St. Frances Cabrini and the words "Welcome to New York."
November 5, 2025 at 10:16 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
Went to the Cabrini Shrine in Washington Heights to let Mother know the city is safely in immigrant hands. (Ok, I am chaperoning a field trip, but good timing, right?) Deo gratias!
Me in the foreground, in front of a very large stained-glass window depicting St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, patron of immigrants, in glory, as they say
November 5, 2025 at 4:46 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
Oh FUCK YOU New York Times
Headline from the New York Times: MAMDANI'S IMPROBABLE RUN ENDS IN VICTORY
November 5, 2025 at 2:48 AM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
This is the first post I saw when I opened Facebook just now. If you must show me posts from accounts I don't follow, you need to show them to me the day they are posted and not two days later. Time-sensitivity is your main selling point, and you ruined it! Your algorithm makes your product worse!
Facebook post from the verified account for Kirsten Gillibrand, which says it was posted "1d" ago but seems to be from Saturday evening, and which says, "Good luck to everyone gearing up for the NYC marathon tomorrow!" The marathon was yesterday.
November 3, 2025 at 1:45 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
Things that are great:
1. Jane Krakowski
2. Cheyenne Jackson
3. 5 p.m. curtain on a Sunday
4. This show
5. The way all you people managed to talk constantly about this show for a year and a half without spoiling anything for me
6. The preshow playlist for "Oh, Mary!"
Holding my Playbill for the Broadway show "Oh, Mary!" in front of the purple and pink stage curtain.
November 3, 2025 at 2:02 AM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
I hope it’s not too late to hit you with this fun bit of Halloween whimsy from my kids' school party.
A classroom set up with tables full of sweets, and students filing by to fill their plates. They are all in costume (I have obscured their faces). In the middle is a boy in an inflatable T Rex costume that makes him at least 8 feet tall. The dinosaur's head looks like it's thrown back in a triumphant roar as the boy reaches with his T Rex arm to grab a cookie.
November 2, 2025 at 1:15 AM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
Hello, look at the cool NextGen Acela train I got to ride on yesterday! It was really nice! They did a great job designing it! (Today I rode back homeon a regular old Acela, so I can make a direct comparison.) Fund @amtrak.com, because good trains make life better! 🚄
Me standing on a station platform in my gray coat and green-and-orange scarf, taking a selfie in front of the nose of a white NextGen Acela train. It looks like a spaceship lying on its belly, or maybe like the Epcot monorail, and it has angled red headlights that look kind of like dragon eyes.
October 29, 2025 at 11:28 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
The city wouldn't be the same without the contributions of the British [burning down a quarter of it and then occupying it for seven years]
From the Wikipedia entry "Great Fire of New York (1776)" The Great Fire of New York was a devastating fire that burned through the night of September 20, 1776, and into the morning of September 21, on the West Side of what then constituted New York City at the southern end of the island of Manhattan. It broke out in the early days of the military occupation of the city by British forces during the American Revolutionary War. The fire destroyed from 10 to 25 percent of the buildings in the city, while some unaffected parts of the city were plundered. Many people believed or assumed that one or more people deliberately started the fire for a variety of different reasons. British leaders accused revolutionaries acting within the city and state, and many residents assumed that one side or the other had started it. The fire had long-term effects on the British occupation of the city, which did not end until 1783.
October 27, 2025 at 6:52 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
Weekend plans; who's in
A panel from a black-and-white Peanuts strip, in which Linus, standing, is saying to Lucy, who is sitting on the ground reading a book: "Why don't we get the whole gang together, and go out and sing pumpkin carols?"
October 25, 2025 at 2:25 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
Fantastic detail—I almost said "incredible" but no, it's very much credible—in Michael S. Rosenwald's obituary for Ruth A. Lawrence (which you should read in full): www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/h...
In 1984, C. Everett Koop, the U.S. Surgeon General, appointed Dr. Lawrence to lead a committee of breastfeeding experts. The group traveled to the Vatican for a conference. Dr. Lawrence and her husband, Bob Lawrence, a radiologist, met with Pope John Paul II. Assuming she was just a wife along for the trip, the Pope thanked her husband for his work on breastfeeding. “In her typical grace, she simply smiled and thanked him,” Dr. Lawrence’s daughter, Joan Lawrence, said in an email. “Proper credit for the work was not important to her; the global cause for breastfeeding was.”
October 24, 2025 at 2:25 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
This, on the other hand, is a correct usage of "dons," because Pope Francis is actually in the act of putting on the headdress in the photo. He is donning it. He is *also* wearing it, which is perhaps why people have gotten confused about "don." In conclusion: use "sporting," and hire copy editors.
Photo of Pope Francis in his usual white cassock, but with a feathered and beaded ceremonial headdress on his head. He has his hands up on either side of his head, adjusting the headdress or perhaps holding it in place. Two other men, one also wearing traditional Native garb, stand on either side of him. The caption reads, "Pope Francis dons a headdress during a visit with Indigenous peoples at Maskwaci, the former Ermineskin Residential School, Monday, July 25, 2022, in Maskwacis, Alberta. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)"
October 24, 2025 at 1:06 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
This lede from the Wirecutter is a good example of how the word gets misused. Donning a sweatsuit in public is still frowned upon, actually, because you should put your pants on in private! What you want to say here is "wearing," or, if you need a cuter term, "sporting." Not "donning." 2/
"Once upon a time, donning a sweatsuit in public was like hanging a sign around your neck that said: 'I've given up.' But those days are long gone. To the relief of many (and the horror of a few), we're now living..."
October 24, 2025 at 12:58 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
Listen up, nerds, I just saw "Ragtime" at Lincoln Center, and I want to talk about the prop baby, and the trouble with deliberately noting the passage of time while fudging its effects.

So. Near the beginning of the show, we have a newborn baby (pictured here in Nichelle Lewis's arms)... 1/
Production photo from "Ragtime," with two black actors, Joshua Henry and Nichelle Lewis, embracing while facing forward and singing their faces off at the climax of "Wheels of a Dream." Lewis is holding a prop infant, swaddled in blankets, so all the audience sees is a baby-shaped object.
October 23, 2025 at 1:03 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
If you have 8 minutes to spare, I can tell you the worst way to spend them!
From the NYT homepage, under the heading "Opinion": Bret Stephens Why Mamdani Frightens Jews Like Me 4 min read Ross Douthat Taylor Swift's Latest Reinvention Is Both Coarse and Conservative 4 min read
October 22, 2025 at 1:41 AM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
There was one arrest at #NoKings in Wilkes-Barre, PA, but—in a shocking twist—it was a Trump supporter acting violently. www.thetimes-tribune.com/2025/10/18/w...
"Witnesses: Trump supporter flashed gun to crowd at Wilkes-Barre 'No Kings protest By Michael Buffer UPDATED: October 18. 2025 at 4:12 PM ET WILKES-BARRE - City police arrested a man who flashed a gun to people protesting President Donald Trump's administration at Saturday's "No Kings" event on Public Square, eyewitnesses said. Police said information on the arrest will be released in a post on Facebook. The man flashed his gun while in a red Jeep furnished with Trump flags, the witnesses said."
October 18, 2025 at 10:09 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
I hope the person who donated this CD case to the thrift shop WITH NO DISC IN IT is having a miserable day 😡 My singalong plans for my drive home were ruined 😣
A cracked plastic case with the booklet for the Indigo Girls album "Rites of Passage" showing through the window
October 15, 2025 at 6:34 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
Pretty good gag on my Yale Record calendar for today
Closeup on a calendar grid, showing a box with today's date, 13, and the label "Indigenous Peoples vs. Columbus Day"
October 13, 2025 at 1:55 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
Time for this again
Over a picture of a statue of St. Catherine of Siena's wimpled and veiled face looking at something with grim mouth and narrowed eyes, the quotation "Don't make it necessary for me to complain about you to Christ crucified."
October 12, 2025 at 8:16 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
The Catholic Chapel and Center at Yale has added these (and more) quotations from various papal teachings about care and concern for immigrants to the windows outside its main meeting room. This is the kind of catechesis we need more of in the U.S. church.
A window pane with this text: "...No one would exchange his country for a foreign land if his own afforded him the means of living a decent and happy life." —Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (1891), no. 47 "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, living in exile in Egypt to escape the fury of an evil king, are, for all times and all places, the models and protectors of every migrant, alien, and refugee of whatever kind, who, whether compelled by fear of persecution or by want, is forced to leave his native land, his beloved friends and relatives, his close friends, and to seek a foreign soil." —Pope Pius XII, Exsul Familia Nazarethana (1962), Apostolic Constitution "The poverty and misfortune with which immigrants are stricken are yet another reason for coming generously to their aid... It is necessary to guard against the rise of new forms of racism or xenophobic behavior, which attempt to make these brothers and sisters of ours scapegoats for what may be difficult local situations..." John Paul II, World Migration Day (1996) "Migrants present a particular challenge for me, since I am the pastor of a church without frontiers, a Church which considers herself a mother to all. For this reason, I exhort all countries to a generous openness which, rather than fearing the loss of local identity, will prove capable of creating new forms of cultural synthesis." Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (2013)
October 12, 2025 at 7:21 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
Doug showing Kamala something on his phone; he looks pleased, while she is giving him a disgusted sidelong look
October 11, 2025 at 11:25 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
I guess I never really wondered why a high, squeaky voice is associated with chipmunks. You can learn so much from being in nature! Here is a still of my handsome little friend.
Same chipmunk, peeking out from his perch, behind a fence.
October 10, 2025 at 12:06 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
I heard a chirping sound when I was at the @nybg.bsky.social yesterday. What kind of bird is that? I wondered. Wrong question, as it turned out!
October 10, 2025 at 12:04 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
Catholic influencers logging on to vatican dot va this morning
Kombucha woman meme, but reversed. In the first box, above the "intrigued" face, is "Apostolic Exhortation 'Dilexi Te' of the Holy Father Leo XIV to All Christians..." And in the second box, above the "disgusted" face, is the rest of the title of the new document: "...on Love for the Poor"
October 9, 2025 at 1:04 PM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
"the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa"

(This is a joke for three of you)
Photo from Hadestown on Broadway, specifically from the number "Any Way the Wind Blows," with Eva Noblezada as Eurydice seated at a table clutching a tall votive candle and surrounded by the three Fates, who are singing aggressively at her. Eva/Eurydice has a fantastic "Can you believe this shit" expression on her face, and she hasn't even met tragic lover and anti-fascism rabblerouser Orpheus yet.
October 9, 2025 at 2:30 AM
mollieoreilly.bsky.social
I just hope they didn't nab this one, because you *know* she'd cut a deal
Eleanor Parker as the Baroness in The Sound of Music, sipping champagne and scheming
October 9, 2025 at 1:12 AM