In 1961, three months before Barack Obama’s birth, President John F. Kennedy gave a speech to members of the media. There is, said he, “little value in ensuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.”[1] Does JFK’s assertion apply today? In my judgment it is both pertinent and accurate, given […]
“Transforming the very fabric of society;” and “radically reordering society’s view of reality”: these are what “being queer” means to the ideologues behind the homosexual political movement that is currently sweeping through legislatures around the world. Is this the insane ranting of a right-wing Christian conspiracy theorist? Is it yet another “attack” by wicked Pope […]
Oftentimes the seasons of Lent and Advent are filled with our good intentions about what we will do, what we will read, and the changes we will make in our daily lives. The weeks stretch out ahead of us and we begin with great plans and an eagerness to experience the holy season in a […]
It’s hard to decide whether this story should be filed under “The Lord works in mysterious ways” or “Be careful what you wish for; you may get it.” A woman who goes by Pastor Alois Bell of Truth in the Word Deliverance Ministries, a storefront ministry in downtown St. Louis, claims she uses social media […]
“Your freedom is likely to be someone else’s harm.” So says bioethicist Daniel Callahan of the Hastings Center, responding to the recent controversy over provisions in Obamacare that penalize smokers. In the era of the Bloomberg ban on Big Gulps, the proper role, if any, that government should have in the lifestyle decisions of […]
I live in Christchurch, New Zealand. A city that, over the past few years, has been struck by several large earthquakes. As a result our city doesn’t have that many buildings left standing. Most of our churches are gone. Masses are celebrated in halls or parish centers. Whole parishes themselves don’t exist and our city is […]
Still pining over our combined pilgrimage-vacation to Rome last year, my wife and I decided to participate in the Year of Italian Culture 2013 at the National Gallery here in Washington, D.C. There we were able to gaze upon Michelangelo’s David-Apollo, which is on loan to the Gallery from the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, through March 3. […]
I’m turning into my father. My father was born in 1933. He was a paperboy in the days when paperboys stood on city corners and shouted “Extra!” In my father’s home, the newspaper still is king. He has two delivered daily. He reads every inch of both. He does the crossword puzzles in both, too […]
Walking among a half million fellow pro-lifers on January 25 in the nation’s capital, one could not help but reflect on the irony: We marched to remember the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s abolition of every state law against abortion in Roe v. Wade, while only four days previously the same streets were filled with […]
For many contemporary Catholics, the Second Vatican Council is the most important, if not the only, Church Council in the history of the Church. For them, it brought the Church out of a rigorist darkness and enlightened it by its contact with modernity. If you would like to think that, you are wrong, but go […]
A life of holiness is not something that is relegated to the cloister and the monastery. It is for everyone. This is something I learned from studying the lives of the saints, from learning to pray with the Church, and from the Scriptures themselves. We are all called to be perfect as our heavenly Father […]
In the UK he is a household name. He has done a beautiful series of documentaries for BBC on the world’s wildlife. He was even knighted by the Queen. And he is a bona-fide, certified, take-no-prisoners people hater. The hater in question, Sir David Attenborough, made the news last week by comparing the human race […]
We live in a busy world that is changing at the speed of light. Yet, good manners never go out of style. Most of us parents emphasize the importance of please, thank you, and excuse me, and do our best to insure that our children are polite, but when it comes to the finer points […]
From June, 1981 to the present, six people from Medjugorje (Bosnia-Hercegovina) have been claiming to see the Virgin Mary. Over these 31 or so years, much controversy has arisen concerning the origin of these claims. Lies, scandal, slander, disobedience and accusations that the alleged visionaries are being handled by the local Franciscans form a forgotten […]
New York City schools distributed 12,721 doses of the “Morning-After Pill” to students last year, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The 40 school-based “health centers” also performed thousands of injections of long-term contraception and implanted intrauterine devices (IUDs). Under state law, schools do not need to obtain parental consent to dispense […]
Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 138:1-5,7-8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11) Answering the Call to Share Our Faith with Others “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” (Luke 5:10) Think about what would have been left out of this story if Jesus had never […]
Numerous self-improvement gurus recommend vocabulary-building to help business professionals make more favorable first impressions. That’s fine. But what may be even more important is to pronounce words correctly. That’s not so easy to learn … I am a child of the Central Valley in California. Farmers and ranchers and cowboys settled our fertile land. So […]
Have you ever looked yourself in the mirror and wondered why you have four “frown lines” for every laugh line? When was the last time you gut-laughed? Do you slip into your daughter’s room late at night, and wish you’d spent as much time enjoying her as you did lecturing her? Do you ever wonder […]
Sean Considine, a safety for the Baltimore Ravens, is the first to point out that he belongs to some important families – God’s family, the family of his parents, his hometown community, the family he shares with his wife and four children, and the NFL. “My Catholic faith has played a huge role in my […]
So you walk into your office and there is a yellow post-it slip that informs you to see the boss as soon as possible. You make your way around your colleagues as their stares increase a sense of anxiety. Your heart begins to pulse faster and you even begin to perspire. You knock in the […]
God’s rules protect humanity from such the situation of a man who birthed three children, now seeking divorce will soon be a single mother…or is that father? Many are confused because once you mess with Divine order, insanity rules. From two women, to transgender union, to marriage, to parenthood, and now headed for divorce court, […]
Sleep is in short supply and the cause of costly losses these days. A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that approximately 40.6 million American workers average fewer than six hours of sleep per night. According to the Wall Street Journal, workplace insomnia has cost U.S. companies collectively over an […]
Legal analysts are scrambling today to make sense of new regulations released by the Obama administration that purport to provide a broader opt-out for religious organizations opposed to the HHS birth control mandate. However, conservative groups are approaching the revised rules warily, after a previous “accommodation” announced by the Obama administration was widely denounced as […]
