About the Authors

Mary DeTurris Poust is an award-winning columnist, journalist, and author whose work has appeared in both Catholic and secular magazines and newspapers across the country for more than two decades. She is a contributing editor for Our Sunday Visitor, a national Catholic newsweekly, and the author of Parenting a Grieving Child: Helping Children Find Faith, Hope, and Healing After the Loss of a Loved One (Loyola Press, 2002). Her column “Life Lines,” which focuses on parenting and family life from a faith perspective, appears monthly in Catholic New York and other regional and national newspapers and frequently in the Times Union of Albany, New York.

Mary is the former managing editor of Manhattan-based Catholic New York and the former associate editor of The Catholic Spirit in Austin, Texas. She has also worked for the Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey, and the Diocese of Albany, New York. In addition, she writes behind the scenes for a number of religious communities and organizations.

A graduate of Pace University, Mary has been honored by the Catholic Press Association numerous times for her news writing, feature writing, investigative reporting, and for her column.

Mary, her husband, Dennis, and their three children live in upstate New York.

The Rev. Msgr. David I. Fulton is a priest of the Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey, and an assistant professor of canon law at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore. He holds a doctorate in sacred theology from the University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome and a doctorate in canon law from Gregorian University in Rome. Msgr. Fulton is pastor of Our Lady of Victories Catholic Church in Baptistown, New Jersey, and serves on the tribunal of the Diocese of Metuchen. He is theological consultant to the Bishop of Metuchen and to the New Jersey Catholic Conference.