I grew up in a big, blended Irish Catholic family just outside of Los Angeles.
In 1953 there were two ways for an Irish Catholic boy to impress his parents: become a priest or attend Notre Dame.
I'm not sure I would make a direct connection between having press attention as a young person and being interested in the media as an older person. I came to it more organically, coming from a family of Irish Catholic storytellers. Storytelling is a pastime and important part of my family's history and culture.
For a man to come right out and say he does not believe in the Old Testament, I think many Catholics across the nation as well as the world are offended by Bill O'Reilly claiming he's an Irish Catholic.
I come from a blue-collar, Irish Catholic, pro-Kennedy, pro-union family of Democrats.
People make mistakes in life. You shouldn't have to live with that for the rest of your life. I believe in redemption. I'm an Irish Catholic, and I just think it's the right thing to do.
I spent my entire Irish Catholic youth in a constant state of guilt over imaginary sins. I learned that nothing is a sin as long as you don't take pleasure from it.
I saw my mother crying for the first time, which made a huge impression on me, when I came home from kindergarten, and she was watching TV because JFK - that Irish Catholic president that we loved - had been killed.
From the year of his birth in 1914 until the outbreak of war in 1941, my father lived in a mostly white, mostly working-class, mostly Irish Catholic neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York.
