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Weekly Wits: 9/6/13

Weekly Wits: 9/6/13

Sep 6 13 • 0 comments

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Two Child Policy in China: Too Little Too Late?

Two Child Policy in China: Too Little Too Late?

With its announcement of possible reforms, China has implicitly admitted its forty year-old one child per-family policy has been a failure. The rules led to draconian abuses. There were an estimated 336 million abortions, including forced abortions and sterilizations at the hands of a powerful and intrusive family planning establishment controlling the most intimate aspects […]

Poem: "Cicadas at Rest"

Poem: “Cicadas at Rest”

Sep 6 13 • 0 comments

Cicadas at Rest I laid still long enough to see the clouds float by And feel my baby’s breath– almostly soundlessly– against my neck. I saw a pair of hawks soaring on a shared invisible current, Wings spread, gliding in tandem, as if tethered by an unseen kite string. But they were free and so […]

We Need to Stop Eating the Marshmallows

We Need to Stop Eating the Marshmallows

Sep 5 13 • 1 comment

It seems there might be a lesson here for America.

Why Francis Proclaimed a Fast

Why Francis Proclaimed a Fast

Sep 5 13 • 3 comments

This Saturday Pope Francis called for a day of fasting and prayer for peace, especially for the rapidly escalating (or deteriorating) situation in Syria.  Since these days are so seldom proclaimed, they present us a great opportunity to examine fasting in greater detail.  In todays age where fasting and penance are almost non-existent (sadly enough […]

Woman In Love: A Love Story Worth Reading

Woman In Love: A Love Story Worth Reading

Sep 5 13 • 0 comments

I’m sort of a sucker for love stories. But then again—aren’t we all?  Love is the most basic human need.  The music we listen to, the TV shows we watch… everything about the culture we live in testifies to the fact that we are starving for real love that satisfies.  Because of this, I believe […]

Lament and Wait Quietly for the Lord

Lament and Wait Quietly for the Lord

Far too frequently we look around our lives and find so much going so wrong.   Sometimes we know what we can do about our problems, and sometimes we don’t.  But that’s where faith comes in.  Here’s what I mean: The sixth century before Christ was a time of tremendous pain for the Israelites.  The Temple […]

How To Be A Crazy (for Christ) Catholic

How To Be A Crazy (for Christ) Catholic

Sep 5 13 • 0 comments

Do you make the Sign of the Cross and bow your head in prayer before eating at a restaurant? On Ash Wednesday, do you walk into work after lunch with an ashy smudge on your forehead? When asked by your colleagues what you did on the weekend, do you say you went to Mass? Do […]

Aristotle and Manna

Aristotle and Manna

Sep 4 13 • 1 comment

To feed the Israelites during their wandering time in the desert, the Lord caused to appear on the ground a flaky substance that tasted like pancakes with honey. At its first appearance, the people quite sensibly asked what everyone asks upon seeing something new, “What is it?”  And that very question became their name for […]

Social Media, Dehumanization, and First Words

Social Media, Dehumanization, and First Words

Sep 4 13 • 0 comments

In a profound analysis of the inherent problems with “advance directives” and other such statements of how one wishes to be cared for at the end of life, Brother John Luth writes in an e-mail: In philosophy, we are taught that the first words are the most important in an argument. As Christians, we can […]

Overestimating Me

Overestimating Me

Sep 4 13 • 0 comments

When you live a life where you try to stay as connected to your Creator as this broken world and your sinful ways allow, you change your perspective on the big picture and the details.  He has control over all of it.  He can guide your path, deal with the obstacles on the way and […]

John B. Tabb - Priest-Poet

Tabb’s Poetry XXXIII

Sep 4 13 • 0 comments

Five poems by John B. Tabb.

Understanding Pro-Choice Arguments

Understanding Pro-Choice Arguments

Sep 4 13 • 1 comment

I realized a while ago that debates are pointless. All they do is try to prove the other person wrong rather than bring about greater knowledge of the good. Think about it – the nature of a debate is to locate the weakness in a person’s argument so that you can exploit it to the […]

Book Review: <i>Sisterhood of Saints</i>

Book Review: Sisterhood of Saints

Are you in need of some daily inspiration? Do you love to learn about the saints? If you answered “yes” to either of those questions, then Sisterhood of Saints by Melanie Rigney (Franciscan Media, 2013) is a book you will want to keep close by. Rigney writes that researching all these women changed her life. […]

Time to Make "Unborn" the New Gay?

Time to Make “Unborn” the New Gay?

Sep 4 13 • 0 comments

Last week marked 50 years since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his seminal “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Fifty years ago, if someone had told the audience assembled at the National Mall that they would see a black man elected President in their lifetime, […]

Six Tips To Help You Evangelize Lapsed Catholics

Six Tips To Help You Evangelize Lapsed Catholics

Sep 3 13 • 3 comments

We talk a lot about technology in the New Evangelization, and rightly so: “The commemoration of this half millennium of evangelization will have full significance if, as bishops, with your priests and faithful, you accept it as your commitment; a commitment not of re-evangelization, but rather of a new evangelization; new in its ardour, methods and […]

Disability, Service, and Stewardship

Disability, Service, and Stewardship

Sep 3 13 • 0 comments

There’s a dangerous tendency in America today to view disabilities of various kinds as insuperable barriers to productive and loving service. There is often an implicit, and sometimes explicit, disrespect of a basic feature of human dignity in the treatment of those with disabilities as merely passive recipients of government aid, the objects of public […]

Happy New Year: Exploring Rosh Hashana

Happy New Year: Exploring Rosh Hashana

Sep 3 13 • 0 comments

When the sun sets on September 4th, the Jewish year moves from 5773 to 5774. Jews follow a calendar that is unlike the Gregorian calendar we follow in which September 5th will still find us in the year 2013. For Jews, the calendar is essentially a lunar calendar so that it can best reflect the […]

Opportunities to Share the Faith:  Infant Baptism or "Baby Dedication"?

Opportunities to Share the Faith: Infant Baptism or “Baby Dedication”?

Sep 3 13 • 0 comments

A great opportunity to share the Catholic faith with Protestants is when they bring up the ceremony that they call ‘Baby Dedication’. This is a ceremony in which the child’s parents, and sometimes their entire family (usually grandparents), make a public pronouncement and commitment before the Lord to raise their child to serve God, according […]

Food, Fertility, and Femininity

Food, Fertility, and Femininity

Sep 3 13 • 5 comments

For most women when the buzzing alarm goes off in the morning, it isn’t because farm chores await completion and the baking of a hearty breakfast beckons. That’s someone else’s story. Instead, most likely, eyes peel open in order to face the daily grind—coffee, a commute, and a cubical. These days, there is more and […]

Adopt a Catholic Seminarian

Adopt a Catholic Seminarian

Sep 3 13 • 0 comments

Ten years ago, I would never have guessed I would be on Facebook. The internet age has provided us a way to communicate with others all over the world. When I first joined Facebook I assumed it would be a way to see family pictures of grandkids and that’s about all,  but I have found […]

The Control Freak’s Guide to Happiness

The Control Freak’s Guide to Happiness

Sep 2 13 • 0 comments

Years ago, a caller asked a radio host what to do regarding her father. He wasn’t around while she was growing up, and his absenteeism hadn’t changed now that she was an adult. Despite his caring words on the phone, he wouldn’t actually follow through by visiting his daughter in person. The distraught daughter called […]

The High Costs of High-Tech Babies

The High Costs of High-Tech Babies

Sep 2 13 • 0 comments

Francoise Baylis, a professor in Bioethics and Philosophy in Canada, has an important piece out on the Quebec law that pays for up to three IVF cycles out of the state-funded public health system. I wrote about this bad decision when Quebec passed the law in 2010. Is it working? Sort of. IVF cycles in […]

Police Storm German Homeschooling Family’s House, Seize Children

Police Storm German Homeschooling Family’s House, Seize Children

Sep 2 13 • 0 comments

At 8:00 a.m. last Thursday, a team of 20 social workers, police officers, and special agents stormed a homeschooling family’s residence near Darmstadt, Germany, forcibly removing all four of the family’s children (ages 7–14). The sole grounds for removal were that the parents, Dirk and Petra Wunderlich, continued to homeschool their children in defiance of […]