This Good Friday, I was struck by the beginning of the Divine Mercy Novena, in which Jesus asks us to bring Him all sinners. I found this message especially appropriate for Good Friday, because it drives home the truth that Jesus died for everyone. So often lately, we seem to have forgotten that Jesus died […]
Notre Dame is still struggling with its mission as Our Lady’s university. On August 15, 1990, Pope John Paul II promulgated the Apostolic Constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae (English: From the Heart of the Church). The document marked the first step in the systematic effort to renew and reform Catholic higher education around the world. One […]
I am always here – 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year – waiting for you. But generally I am alone, abandoned and ignored. So when I looked out from behind the closed doors this morning, I was overjoyed to see you-so many of you. While there were many […]
If you are searching for the authoritative Baedeker Guide to the End of the West, search no longer. The book by Patrick J. Buchanan, Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? makes a devastating case for the end of what we know as the West. Pat Buchanan is the unacknowledged godfather of the […]
Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Acts 4:32-35; Psalm 118:2-4,13-15,22-24; 1 John 5:1-6; John 20:19-31) Opening Ourselves to Receiving God’s Divine Mercy This is the one who came through water and blood. (1 John 5:6) “Throughout the world the Second Sunday of Easter will receive the name Divine Mercy Sunday, a perennial invitation […]
I try so hard to have faith, but I have never figured out the best way to take kids to Mass. I mean, on the one hand, there’s the Real Presence, and taking your children to see the Miracle that redeems mankind is unquestionably of utmost importance. But on the other hand, there’s the mental […]
As we approach Easter Sunday and the beginning of the Easter Season let us take time to reflect on the extraordinary and undeserved gift we have received through Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection — our sins have been forgiven and we are now sharers of eternal life with Christ. The second reading from the Easter […]
“Social issues.” It’s a squishy, equivocal term suited to a mentality ill at ease with the hard-edged implications of “moral issues” and “morality.” What implications? That there are definite moral truths that show some things to be always and everywhere wrong and deserving of condemnation. Not what the “social issues” mindset cares to hear. There’s […]
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps. (1 Peter 2:21) There are many, many lessons to be learned in the example Christ left for us in his suffering. One of those, I believe, is a lesson in how […]
Today, we take time now to look back at the blessings God has provided during the 40 Days for Life campaign that just ended. But just as importantly, we also look to the future. For this campaign, we have received reports of 772 babies spared from abortion — that we know of! Many of the local campaigns […]
“We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become. If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing. Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ, rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation. This means we are to […]
In today’s secular culture, there are some common misconceptions (pun intended) regarding the Church’s teachings on sex and marriage. I believe the following attitudes (in bold) illustrate that many modern Catholics, young and old alike, are poorly catechized, especially in this important area. The Church is preoccupied with sex. Actually, it is the world which […]
America anxiously awaits the Supreme Court’s decision on Obamacare. At the core of the decision is a simple question: Is the “individual mandate” in Obamacare constitutional? And thus, is Obamacare constitutional? Several times during the debate and deliberation, my mind harkened back to the words of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Remarking on […]
On Holy Thursday, the night before he died, the Lord Jesus made some startling changes in the ritual of the Passover meal. Instead of being content with the traditional Jewish table blessing over the bread, Jesus proclaimed “take and eat for this is my body.” Over the third cup of wine, known as the cup […]
A city like no other, maybe even more so this time of year. What do you call a city with a jail named Regina Coeli (Queen of Heaven)? For the last 3,000 years, you call it Rome. Forty years had passed since I had last visited Rome, broke and hitchhiking through Europe the summer after […]
Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) and his two children, Dylan (Colin Ford) and Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones), lost their wife and mother, Katherine, just six months ago. The family is grieving and Benjamin is floundering in his job as a journalist. Dylan (fourteen) is moody, angry and in regular trouble at school. Rosie (seven) misses her […]
As Christians around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ this Easter, heaven is naturally on the minds of many. Recent polls indicate that between 75 and 90 percent of Americans believe that heaven exists, percentages that far exceed the belief by residents of other Western nations. As the author of “Heaven in the […]
On Good Friday many of us will try and fail to comprehend the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the Cross. How can we comprehend such suffering? What in our lives can ever compare to the horrors of the Passion? The Crucifixion was bad enough but there was also the Scourging and the Crowning with […]
According to liberal feminists like Nancy Pelosi and Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards, opposition to the Health and Human Services mandate forcing religious employees to cover contraceptive services amounts to a misogynistic “war on women.” The media is often all too willing to repeat these women’s views as being representative of the female population at […]
Looking at the cover of Sons of Cain, by Val Bianco, will send a shiver through your spine. It’s a true Catholic thriller and a fascinating story of grand proportions. “Sons of Cain” grabs your very mind, heart, and soul, and refuses to let go. The prologue provides a stunning beginning to the story because […]
All the Devils Are Here, by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, is a fascinating look at the principle players who brought about the financial crisis of 2008. It reveals the motives and mistakes made over the course of a decade by those who were entrusted with running the largest financial corporations of the world as […]
Many are the citations of late that expose a rampant increase in man’s desire to deny scientific truth in favor of sham-science. This is perhaps most obvious in the matter of intrinsic human rights which, fundamentally, begin when a particular individual begins. Or not? It depends on who is pontificating about that beginning, how the […]
Earlier this month the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation’s (GLAAD) “Commentator Accountability Project” included me on their list of people who deserve special scrutiny before they can be engaged as commentators on the marriage debate. But it is organizations like GLAAD that need to be held accountable for the impact of their rhetoric on […]
The Justice Department has dropped charges against a Florida pro-life activist and agreed to pay $120,000 in attorney’s fees just days after Attorney General Eric Holder filed an appeal against a lower court’s ruling in favor of the pro-lifer. Susan Pine, the president of the non-profit organization FACE Life, told LifeSiteNews.com that she learned federal […]
