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Cries of “Saint Now” for JPII Echo “Santo Subito” for St. Francis

Nearly 800 years ago, Pope Gregory IX, responded to shouts of “Santo Subito” (“Sainthood Now”) when he left the Lateran Palace in Rome and made the 120-mile arduous journey to Assisi (shown at left) to canonize St. Francis. Francis just wanted to be a humble hermit yet died a very public death in 1226, bearing the […]

Peace Be With You

In last Sunday’s Gospel we were told that the disciples had locked themselves in a room for fear of retaliation by the Jews. “Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’” We are familiar with the story of Thomas and how he doubted his friends, so I do […]

Something Rotten in Denmark (and Here)

Surprisingly, on net, last week was not a good one for the Free World.  Despite the signal accomplishment of liquidating Osama bin Laden, Western civilization suffered serious reverses on several fronts. What these reverses all have in common is a deference to the doctrine our enemies’ call “shariah,” in a manner they perceive to be […]

Comic: Punctuated Equilibrium

Interview with DeVon Franklin: Hollywood Executive, Christian Preacher and Author

The modern secular world puts pressure on us to leave our faith at the office door lest we offend someone or appear to be forcing our beliefs on others.  Yet we should seriously consider that our work is a vocation, a calling from God to serve others regardless of what career field we have chosen.  […]

Flipping the Fear about Preaching on Abortion

Early in my work at Priests for Life a woman wrote, “I can’t help but think that if twenty years ago I heard a sermon in my Church against abortion, I would have found the strength to keep my baby instead of killing my baby.” Since then, countless women, as well as men, have said […]

The Armor of God

When I was a young adult there was a wildly popular book about dressing for career success.  It spawned many copycat books, all proclaiming the benefits of proper attire for everything from boardrooms to schoolrooms.  The premise was that your clothes were the first impression others had of you, and consequently had a great impact […]

Pro-Life Provisions In Hungarian Constitution Shock EU

I was praying before the tomb of the great Cardinal Mindszenty in his cathedral at Esztergom, when I heard the news that his beloved Hungary had passed a new, pro-life constitution. The Cardinal, who took sanctuary in the U.S. Embassy for 16 years after Soviet troops crushed the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, would be proud. […]

The Italian Crucifix Case: A Watershed?

The Italian crucifix case (Lautsi case) is the first case in the history of the Court which attracts so much attention and mobilizes so much people to act. With this case, the Court appeared publicly as an ideological battlefield where significant political decisions are passed in certain confidentiality. This case arose in the rather exceptional […]

Inflation: Food, Fuel, and the Fed

As Americans increasingly feel the pinch of higher prices for food and fuel, the Federal Reserve’s QE2 policy of creating more money has been called into question. Asked if the Fed bore some responsibility for these vexing price increases, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke essentially replied, “It’s not our fault.” Instead, Bernanke blamed the price increases […]

A House of Sinners, Not a House of Sin

It is not news that in the last 40 years the Sacred Liturgy has been treated with a banality that has gone from the sentimental to the silly to the irreverent to the heretical, and back again, a few million times. Now, of course, there is nothing silly or banal about the Eucharist and other […]

UN Wants Billions for STD Vaccination Scheme

 The UN is about to ask governments to fund the vaccination of every girl in the world against the sexually transmitted disease HPV, human papillomavirus. The controversial campaign could cost as much as $300 per person, totaling billions.   Dignitaries who launched the campaign at the UN in mid-April included a prominent African first lady, […]

Testimony for Minnesota State Senate Hearings on Same Sex Marriage

Prepared remarks for the Judiciary Committee of the Minnesota State Senate, hearings on same sex marriage Dr Jennifer Roback Morse, founder and president of the Ruth Institute, a project of the National Organization for Marriage April 29, 2011 St.  Paul Minnesota www.ruthinstitute.org   We are here to consider giving the citizens of the State of […]

Emmaus: from Despair to Joy

What a disappointment!  They thought they’d found the Messiah.  But he’d been trapped like an animal and executed as a criminal.  Up until his very last breath, they had hoped he’d descend from the cross in stately power and call down fire upon the hypocrites. But all they heard from him were seven last “words” […]

Adopting a Mom

About 23 years ago I packed all my belongings into my Dad’s Suburban and drove 1500 miles from my Rocky Mountain home to live in a place I had never seen and could barely pronounce.  I had never planned to attend college – since there was no such thing as a faithful Catholic college, to […]

How to Gain True Self-confidence

“So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments” (John 13:2b-3b). This came from the reading on Holy Thursday this year. Each year, in the attempt to emphasize the true […]

May Blossoms, Part Two

The guy sitting next to me in the optometrist’s office bugged me. I mean, he really bugged me. He bugged me like I wanted to actually step outside and stand on the sidewalk by the front door until it was time for my appointment; that’s how much he bugged me. Rather than commit an act […]

What Would Jesus Cut?

That is the question asked by the left-leaning Christian organization, Sojourners, in its campaign of the same name. It is a most appropriate question given the battle over the budget and given this time of year, not long after the most holy holiday of the year for Christians. Sojourners claims that, despite record budget deficits […]

Swiss Cardinal at the Helm of Catholic Ecumenism

Looking ahead to the 500th anniversary of the Reformation in 2017, the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany (VELKD) started a Luther Garden in Wittenberg and invited each of the Lutheran Churches worldwide and also their ecumenical dialogue partners to plant a tree “as a sign of reconciliation and mutual understanding”.  In one of his […]

The Church and the Deficit

For a long time I supposed that social issues — abortion, same-sex marriage, and the rest — were the great dividing line in American politics, with the collapse of natural law thinking at the root of the problem. While I still see the culture war resulting from this as a large part of what ails […]

UN Agency Calls for Population Reduction

A recent press release by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) declares that the world’s population will reach 7 billion people on October 21, 2011. According to PRI President Steven Mosher, while the release pays lip service to human achievements, it also makes a veiled demand for more population control. In the release, UNFPA’s Executive […]

U.S.-Pakistan Relations in Decline

Although the execution of Osama bin Laden was mainly a symbolic and psychological act of counterterrorism, its most immediate consequence, ironically, affects U.S.-Pakistan relations. In response to Pakistani upset about their national sovereignty being trespassed, the Zardari government severely condemned what it called “an unauthorized unilateral action.” Members of U.S. congress, already disappointed in the […]

What is Human Dignity and the Sanctity of Life?

Pope Benedict XVI has aroused some opposition but also worldwide hope for dialogue and discovery of shared truths about our humanness, God, and moral and social crises of our times. He has focused much of his initiative on the core question of “human dignity” and, by implication, “the sanctity of life.” There is good reason […]

Charges Dropped Against Almost All of the ND88

Charges Dropped Against Anti-Abortion Protesters At Notre Dame’s Commencement with President Obama Thomas More Society’s Relentless Legal Defense Wins Justice for Pro-Live Activists  Today, Michael Dvorak, St. Joseph County, Indiana prosecutor, dismissed the criminal trespass charges that he has pressed over the last two years against almost all of the pro-life protesters, known as the […]