The trustees of the Medicare system recently reported that the program will go broke in the year 2024—five years sooner than was projected just last year. The millions of Americans who have been counting on Medicare to be a reliable, stable guarantor of affordable healthcare in their senior years should be asking themselves, “Who is […]
One of the patron saints of World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney, Australia, was Blessed Peter To Rot, a native son of Papua New Guinea. A second-generation Catholic during the evangelization of his Southern Pacific island in the early twentieth century, he was an exemplary husband, father and catechist. In 1945 he suffered martyrdom at […]
I was watching a conversation unfold on a friend’s Facebook wall about the typical daily details of having kids in elementary school. Wait wait, let me think….oh right! THOSE days! I remember them. Which makes me exhausted. It also makes me realize, with apologies to my age-bracket friends who still have little ones, I don’t […]
AMONG the disciples of the apostles in the primitive age of saints this holy virgin shone as a bright star in the Church. She lived when Christians were more solicitous to live well than to write much: they knew how to die for Christ, but did not compile long books in which vanity has often […]
Sometimes I marvel at the creative power of the human mind. Like whoever first thought of grabbing the wind out of the sky and putting it to work for us. Someone, somewhere long ago, needed more grain milled. What to do? Get more serfs, hire more hands, harness more horses. But what if you don’t […]
The Ascension of the Lord Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47:2-3,6-9; Ephesians 1:17-23; Matthew 28:16-20) Receiving the Power to be a Witness for Christ You will receive power… and you will be my witnesses. (Acts 1:8) Can you imagine how the apostles must have felt when Jesus made […]
The economic, political, and cultural challenges facing the city of Detroit are well-known, and have received international coverage in recent months. And while hope springs eternal, there are still signs that the city’s culture of stifling bureaucracy and corruption will be difficult to reform. Nowhere is this simultaneous promise and peril of Detroit’s future more […]
ST. FELIX was a Roman by birth, and succeeded St. Dionysius in the government of the Church in 269. Paul of Samosata, the proud Bishop of Antioch, to the guilt of many enormous crimes added that of heresy, teaching that Christ was no more than a mere man, in whom the Divine Word dwelt by […]
Far too often man seeks God in prayer merely to improve his future standing with the kingdom of heaven or in the present kingdom of man. Recognizing his own sins, man seeks forgiveness from God in order to regain God’s favor. Continually afflicted as he is by the wretchedness in others, man seeks God’s help […]
There are times when a web site review or site audit is a great resource for diagnosing whether or not your website is under performing. The truth of the matter is that all websites can be improved, including mine. But if you have major problems, they should be attended to as soon as possible. And […]
The revolt in Syria offers great opportunities, humanitarian and geo-political. Western states should quickly and robustly seize the moment to dispatch strongman Bashar al-Assad and his accomplice. Many benefits will follow when they reach their appointed dustbin of history. Foreign: The malign but tactically brilliant Hafez al-Assad blighted the Middle East with disproportionate Syrian influence […]
All in All Everywhere I look, I see You suffering, drowning in bays and waterways as winds pass over New Orleans like an Angel of Death. I see You starving in the Serengeti, homeless in Haiti, shaken in Japan, forgotten in prison, and orphaned everywhere. Oh, do not leave us, Lord! I nail Your […]
As I pulled the minivan into our garage late one night my 14-year-old son came out to help me carry in the bins and boxes of materials I had used at a talk I gave that evening at church. I knew the real reason he was being so helpful: I had promised to bring home […]
We have an abundance of free software options that can help us make better use of our PC’s and Mac’s. Several of them are based in the “cloud” which means our information stays static while we are portable – we can access it wherever we have Internet access. My favorites can make your digital life […]
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Today I wish to continue my reflection on how prayer and the sense of religion have been part of man throughout his history. We live in an age in which the signs of secularism are glaringly obvious. God seems to have disappeared from the horizon of some people or to have […]
He wore steel rimmed glasses and had hair to the middle of his back. The fringe on his buck-skinned jacket bounced as he walked. At least that was the way I was accustomed to seeing Mike as he bopped around town. It was just a few years after Woodstock, and we were all taken with […]
Dr. Paul Kengor: Dr. Gary Smith, describe the thesis of your new book. Dr. Gary Scott Smith: My book examines two primary questions: how have Americans conceived of heaven, and on what basis do people gain admission to heaven? My thesis is that while Americans’ beliefs about the grounds for entry to heaven have remained […]
The brutal murder of the head of Turkey’s Catholic Church, Bishop Luigi Padovese, on June 3, 2010, has rattled the country’s small, diverse, and hard-pressed Christian community.[1] The 62-year-old bishop, who spearheaded the Vatican’s efforts to improve Muslim-Christian relations in Turkey, was stabbed repeatedly at his Iskenderun home by his driver and bodyguard Murat Altun, […]
“We’re supposed to be on the Do Not Call list. Why do they keep calling?” “Who, crazy Aunt Ida and Uncle Iggy?” “No, telemarketers, they drive me crazy!” “Why don’t you write a column about it?” “Good idea honey,” I muttered as I picked the phone up off the floor and searched for the batteries. […]
The feast of Divine Mercy is celebrated by the Catholic Church on the first Sunday after Easter Sunday. At least one of the purposes of celebrating this feast in the heart of the Easter season is to remind us that the salvific death of the now risen Lord, replete with the promise of Resurrection and […]
Who Would Dare Smile? Don’t read this if your heart is soft, Your heart is not of granite stone I speak of Patrick, less than two Whose parents beat and broke his bones When officers arrived too late To save his little life, febrile, With broken back and broken ribs Sweet Patrick tried to smile […]
Perhaps about five years ago I began to hear the word “random” with increasing frequency, usually from a teenager, and often as a one-word commentary on life’s apparent incongruities. FreeDictionary.com defines “random” as “a concept of non-order or non-coherence in a sequence of symbols or steps, such that there is no intelligible pattern or combination.” […]
As Beijing continues to vigorously pursue its infamous one-child policy, PRI has gathered evidence showing that Chinese villagers who cannot afford to pay these fines have their “illegal” children abducted and sold by Chinese population control officials. It is well known that those who violate the one-child policy have sometimes been subjected to coerced abortions […]
The other day, I learned that British author Donal Foley has written on the subject of “The Lady of All Nations.”[i] Foley is the original English translator of the Vatican document Normae Congregationis (NC), on the norms for discernment of apparitions. Knowing Foley’s work in private revelation, I was interested to read his remarks on […]
