We have had several articles and comments regarding usury, mainly focusing on what usury is and why distributists oppose it. Considering the prevalence of usurious practices in our current economy, can we even envision how our banking and credit system would work without it? We must candidly admit that loans (and I use the term […]
No, I’m not exaggerating. The American experiment in religious liberty is officially over. The First Amendment provided institutional structures that allow different religions to peacefully coexist. All groups agree to not try to capture governmental structures for the benefit of their own particular denomination. But the Obama administration has ended that truce. The administration made […]
Before they decamped for winter, the Occupy Wall Street folks were promoting the idea of redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor. Although the income of super-rich in America has soared in the last two decades, such a blueprint would achieve neither justice nor economic growth. America has always been a land where creative […]
Earlier this month, Global Television Network in Canada featured a documentary about the so-called “mercy killing” of children with severe disabilities. The very fact that such a topic is even entertained on national television reveals something about the moral state of my country. The documentary featured two parents: the first was Annette Corriveau who wants […]
When our first son was born, my oldest daughter was 7. She had been an only child for so long, we believed she might have some concerns and insecurities over this new addition. I remember talking to her the night our son was born. Mom was still in the hospital. I explained that the addition […]
Last year, the state of California passed a law mandating LGBT history be taught in the public schools. The law also forbids materials that “contain any matter reflecting adversely” upon LGBT persons. While pushing the LGBT agenda, California law forbids “any sectarian or denominational doctrine or propaganda.” The new law also warns private schools that […]
Life without God is madness. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the absurd world of modern “art.” In 1985, Jeff Koons assembled a work that consisted of three basketballs submerged in a fish tank. It symbolized, he proclaimed during one interview, “pre-birth”, “equilibrium,” “the eternal,” and “life after death,” among other things. It eventually […]
Gently making its way toward the front of the room, is this beautiful parade of humanity. The timelines of their lives, their histories… overlap, envelope, criss-cross, consume. At times, one who hasn’t been seen in Too Long is reached for. Hushed promises to Get Together Soon are whispered. Not empty promises. Life does get in […]
In Virginia, Gov. Bob McDonnell signs a bill requiring that abortion-minded women be given the opportunity to see an ultrasound of their unborn children — which causes many of them to change their mind. In Oklahoma, women considering abortion must now listen to the beating heart of their babies in utero — which likewise leads […]
Claude Guéant, the French interior minister, sparked a firestorm last month when he praised Western values as “superior” to the oppressive ones found elsewhere, namely the Islamic world. Yet the controversy did more to spotlight an area in which the West clearly trails its rivals: self-confidence. If a government official cannot extol the unique virtues […]
Archbishop Charles Chaput has written one of the most insightful pieces of our time on modern journalism and the role, or should I say, “non-role” of religion in today’s public square. His searing piece, A Heart on Fire: Catholic Witness and the Next America, is a must read for all those who seek to live […]
Run to your local theater and see OCTOBER BABY as soon as you are able! Bring as many of your family and friends with you as possible! This film completes the incomplete public discussion of abortion and the dignity of all human life. The frank beauty and power of its message will anger some but […]
We Catholics tend to shy away from spiritual vulnerability, a kind of real intimacy and relationship. We suspect emotionalism — a kind of fluctuating faith anchored in ever-changing emotions. That’s for “those evangelicals” whom we perceive to go from church to church, high to high, we think. For many of us, faith is about being a good solider. […]
Was the Trayvon Martin story about race? I can’t sit in judgment on what was in Zimmerman’s heart and mind, but objectively, from what the media has passed on to us, it does look to me like an issue involving prejudice. As a white girl growing up in the fifties and sixties in Washington State, […]
Realizing that his popularity may decline as the price of gasoline rises, President Obama is barnstorming the country, emphatically insisting that drilling for more oil isn’t the cure for high gas prices and that wind and solar energy represent our energy future. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich recently challenged Obama, claiming that gas prices would fall […]
On March 19, speaking at a Morris Township, New Jersey Democratic Party fundraiser, Vice President Joe Biden provided what may be the mother of all election year bumper stickers when he asserted, “Osama Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive. Think about it.” To help wrap our minds around these two facts, referring […]
They say what goes around comes around, or to paraphrase the Good Book, you reap what you sow. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in recent global data on abortion. For years, feminists have maintained that women will not be truly free or equal unless they are free to abort their unborn children. They have sought […]
Negotiations for a final document at the UN Commission on the Status of Women were supposed to end more than a week ago. However, they dragged on for another several days and resulted in a stinging defeat for the Obama administration and anger on the part of the developing world. The US was trying to […]
Recently, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius dropped her guard and gave the American people a good insight into how it is that Obamacare will ultimately stay solvent: The nonexistence of patients who, not being alive, cannot make claims upon the system. From CNSNews.com: During the subcommittee hearing, Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.) said that contraception provided by […]
I was at a cocktail party with my husband. “You don’t work?,” one woman said with pity in her voice, “ I could never stay at home and do nothing.” Do nothing? Really? I had to giggle. This woman obviously didn’t know my bursting-at-the-seams life of cleaning and cooking, gardening, driving, loving, meal planning, shopping, learning, writing, […]
My junior year of college I took a year off from my chemistry studies and went on an adventure. I spent a year studying English literature, philosophy and Latin at Blackfriars College, a part of University of Oxford. Academically, I got my butt handed to me. Once, after spending days poring over a philosophy text […]
Recently, as I was nursing my three-month-old son, I came across another writer taking yet another swipe at the Church and its position on the HHS health care mandate business. Just the week before, I also had seen an image, courtesy Planned Parenthood, which pictured five religious leaders, all men, as they testified before Congress […]
This story by Heather Gemmen Wilson is a dramatic testimony to the value of life–even life that results from a rape. It was featured in the Amazing Grace for Survivors book. It had been more than a year since Casey was stillborn, and it seemed Steve and I would never be able to have the third child […]
Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Isaiah 50:4-7; Psalm 22:8-9,17-20,23-24; Philippians 2:6-11; Mark 14:1–15:47) Opening Ourselves to God as We Contemplate Jesus’ Passion Crucify him! (Mark 15:13) St. Francis de Sales once wrote: “I especially commend earnest mental prayer . . . upon the life and Passion of our Lord. If you contemplate […]
