A quiet, closed-door meeting in Washington next month will be of crucial importance in shaping the Church’s response to the nation’s biggest church-state crisis in decades. When some 40 bishops of the administrative committee of the national bishops’ conference gather March 14-15 at conference headquarters, they’ll be looking at the Obama administration’s January mandate to […]
If Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor were the naïfs who foisted the United Nations on the world, George H. W. Bush was responsible for its revival as a political force. From about 1950 to 1990, the United Nations Security Council was essentially toothless, as the Soviet and U.S. governments disagreed on issue after […]
Talking with my sister-in-law, a maternity ward nurse, the other day about the new Health and Human Services mandate (HHS), I was curious about how things are going since she works at a Catholic hospital. She told me her hospital is totally orthodox and performs no procedures that would hurt or prevent or end life at all. […]
Humor me for a moment and just imagine if the following purely fictional (at least as of this writing) HHS press release was issued: Affordable Care Act Ensures Elders Receive End-of-Life Services at No Additional Cost WASHINGTON—The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced today that it is adopting additional Guidelines for Elder Care […]
She arrived pink and plump, sporting a full head of cotton-soft brown hair and that intoxicatingly sweet scent that only newborns have. All gurgles, whimpers and tiny yawns, her delicate fingers gripped mine as I thought of all the things I wanted to give this brand-new baby girl: love and security, freedom, opportunity and the […]
Last week in his State of the Union address, President Obama claimed to share President Lincoln’s opinion “that government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more.” I thought about that today while running errands and noticing that virtually every billboard in my town directs citizens to federal […]
Who are these people and what have they done with my real parents? My real parents swore they needed a 2600 square foot house and five acres of mountain land for just the two of them because they like their space and privacy. Their impostors sold the house and bought a 1300 square foot South […]
The big Catholic news item in the United States these days centers around the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate requiring nearly all employers to offer health insurance plans that provide zero-deductible coverage for “preventative services” like sterilization and contraception, including drugs that cause abortion. When the mandate was first proposed, the United […]
That rumbling sound you hear isn’t a snow-removal truck, a low-flying plane or a train inadvertently chugging through your backyard. No, it’s the low, slow churning of civic discontent, fomenting thanks to the decades-long trend toward educational mediocrity and resulting in a grass-roots movement that will — with any luck at all — restore our […]
In March of 2010, I had the opportunity to preach to members of Congress and their staff who were gathered at the worship service held inside the Capitol just prior to the vote on Obamacare. In that sermon, I told them that Christianity transforms politics and government, because every human being in Christ has access […]
I was chatting with a priest who is a judge with the marriage tribunal of his large Eastern diocese when he shared an interesting tidbit of information. In his diocese and the other dioceses of his state, the number of requests for marriage annulments has lately fallen by 10%. Good news? Fewer marriages on the […]
Today was the funeral of a dear family friend and my mentor of many years. I couldn’t attend Fr. Jonathan’s funeral, because it was held in Germany where he’s been stationed since 2009. He’s buried there, too, in his community’s cemetery near their Schoenstatt Fathers house and world headquarters. During the hours of the funeral […]
After initially intending to complete this series in three parts (Part I, Part II, Part III), it appears that it may be useful to tie up any remaining loose ends with an overview of the propositions put forth in the Declaration on Religious Liberty of Vatican II, followed by Fr. Murray’s own reflections dated the […]
Friday, January 20, 2012, the Obama administration announced that faith-based institutions must cover free contraception for employees. While mainstream media tries to pass this off as merely covering “the pill,” it also includes sterilization and abortifacients. (See the AP story here.) Regardless, Catholics (and other religious denominations) are being forced to accept insurance coverage for […]
The subject line of the email from my daughter read, “I shudder.” The text said only, “You won’t believe this,” and included a link to a video that my 14-year-old freshman, Amy, wanted me to see. The video that prompted her concern was an episode of “Teens React,” a YouTube series from Fine Brothers Productions, […]
Between 1967 and 1993, just a few hundred Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza won the right to live in Israel by marrying Israeli Arabs (who constitute nearly one-fifth of Israel’s population) and acquiring Israeli citizenship. Then the Oslo Accords offered a little-noted family-reunification provision that turned this trickle into a river: 137,000 residents […]
When I was growing up, we were urged to pray for vocations. That meant to pray for more priests and nuns. After all, they were the ones especially called by God. The rest of us had to figure out for ourselves what to do with our lives, what school to go to, who to marry, […]
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest in the United States, rang in the New Year with some disturbing news: Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala had resigned in shame after publicly admitting to having sired two children with the same woman more than a decade ago. (I use the word “sire” intentionally, as “fathering” is something […]
Is it possible that secular liberals, some of them anyway, are starting to realize that knocking the supports out from under traditional marriage may not be such a great idea? If so, and if their next step is to think seriously about how to halt this destructive process, it will be the dawning of a […]
Just how frustrated are American parents with the leftist Kool Aid being passed off as curriculum in our nation’s public schools? It’s come to this: Last week, the New Hampshire legislature overturned a gubernatorial veto of a bill that will allow parents to object to material being taught in school and further empowers them to […]
As reported by ABC News, while fielding questions at a campaign event in Windham, NH on January 5th, Rick Santorum was challenged to defend his faith by a voter who said, “We don’t need a Jesus candidate, we need an economic candidate.” “My answer to that,” Santorum responded, “We always need a Jesus candidate. We […]
Just to clarify; I was the one in the sweats and athletic shoes. Likely the Cardinal–more precisely Cardinal-designate–was in his clerical shirt, pectoral cross and other black garb, fitting for a man of his office. And, I suppose I didn’t really “meet” him, since we already knew each other; I had met Archbishop Timothy M. […]
At the conclusion to Part 2, we weighed certain of Murray’s arguments in favor of an historically nuanced understanding of the traditional teaching on religious liberty. We will begin Part 3 with what he labeled the “decisive proof.” Murray goes on to quote the Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX, extracting from it what […]
We have just concluded the Christmas season, and find ourselves immersed in the election season. And so it should be. Christmas is actually the best preparation for elections. It is the feast of God becoming human, and thereby joining all humanity to himself. Each person, in Christ, has immediate access to God, and has a […]
