Site Map

Site Feeds

Pages

Categories

Monthly Archives

Tags

All Articles

On Obedience to "the Law."

On Obedience to “the Law.”

In Pope Francis’ recent meeting with Kim Davis, the Holy Father’s expression of gratitude for Kim’s courage has dismayed liberal Americans.  The LA Times editorial board felt it sent a “deeply disappointing message.” In his press conference on the plane home to Rome, Pope Francis seemed to affirm Kim Davis’ conscientious objector status, notwithstanding her […]

Catholics Can Learn Much from Pope Francis' Visit, If Our Hearts are Open

Catholics Can Learn Much from Pope Francis’ Visit, If Our Hearts are Open

Oct 1 15 • • 0 comments

All week my enjoyment of the exuberant visit of Pope Francis was marred by arguments from faithful Catholics close to me who were angry at what he did or did not say or do. Accusations of socialism, moral weakness and just plain wanting to be liked were flying. I begged them to wait and see […]

Out of Africa Comes a Cry for Help Against the Culture of Death

Out of Africa Comes a Cry for Help Against the Culture of Death

Oct 1 15 • • 0 comments

Arriving in the Philippines last January, Pope Francis warned his millions of listeners to resist “ideological colonization.” This destructive assault on families, the Pope continued, included efforts to “redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life.” Africans, above all, know what he […]

Poem: "Eve"

Poem: “Eve”

Eve ‘While I sit at the door Sick to gaze within Mine eye weepeth sore For sorrow and sin: As a tree my sin stands To darken all lands; Death is the fruit it bore. ‘How have Eden bowers grown Without Adam to bend them! How have Eden flowers blown Squandering their sweet breath Without […]

Lessons From the Art Museum

Lessons From the Art Museum

Sep 30 15 • • 0 comments

It wasn’t until November 2012 that I visited my first art museum. Once before, as a college senior and tourist to Chicago, I attempted to visit the Chicago Art Institute, but the price of admission deterred me as a struggling college student. I have visited several art museums since that initial visit and each has […]

Does Quantum Mechanics Provide an Analogy for the Trinity?

Does Quantum Mechanics Provide an Analogy for the Trinity?

Sep 30 15 • • 0 comments

A stumbling block in my conversion process was dealing with the concept of the Holy Trinity–as a Jew, a cornerstone of my minimal religious faith was the Sh’ma Yisrael, that God was One: Sh’ma Yisra’el YHWH Eloheinu YHWH E?ad” Hear O Israel, the LORD is our God, the LORD is one. Deut. 6:4-9 The priest who was […]

Secret Confessions of Surrogate Mothers

Secret Confessions of Surrogate Mothers

Sep 29 15 • • 0 comments

The Catholic Church is perceived to be anti-science. That perception is completely false, of course. The Church is one of the few institutions left that actually looks at human biology and acknowledges the facts. And I am not just talking about the fact that a new genetically distinct human organism is created when fertilization is […]

A Grief Remembered

A Grief Remembered

Sep 29 15 • • 0 comments

I have a memory of  the day my grandfather died in 1962. My father came home from the hospital where my grandfather was being treated for what we thought was a relatively minor ailment but he unexpectedly died. I was waiting at my grandfather’s house with other family members when my dad came in the door. In […]

Pope Speaks Out for Unborn, Natural Family in UN Address

Pope Speaks Out for Unborn, Natural Family in UN Address

World leaders broke out into applause 27 times during the Pope’s address to the UN General Assembly last week, including when he called for the defense of the “right to life,” and called the family the “primary cell of any social development.” Pro-life and pro-family advocates welcomed the speech as an improvement upon the more […]

Praying Through Divorce - And After: How the Rosary is Saving My Soul

Praying Through Divorce – And After: How the Rosary is Saving My Soul

Sep 28 15 • • 0 comments

How do you pray when you are angry? How can you pray for those who oppose you? When I can’t find my own words, the traditional prayers of our Catholic faith can help. When I was going through my divorce, I had a very difficult time praying. I wasn’t sure of the words to use. […]

Book Review: <em>Pray with Me: 7 Simple Ways to Pray with Your Children</em>

Book Review: Pray with Me: 7 Simple Ways to Pray with Your Children

Pray with Me: Seven Simple Ways to Pray with Your Children (Ave Maria Press, 2015) is a great gift to Catholic parents everywhere. Grace Mazza Urbanski, the director of Children’s Ministry for the Apostleship of Prayer in the United States, has degrees in English and Theology, and is also the mother of five children. She […]

Poem: "Part Four: Time and Eternity XVI"

Poem: “Part Four: Time and Eternity XVI”

Sep 27 15 • • 0 comments

Part Four: Time and Eternity XVI THE CLOUDS their backs together laid, The north begun to push, The forests galloped till they fell, The lightning skipped like mice; The thunder crumbled like a stuff— How good to be safe in tombs, Where nature’s temper cannot reach, Nor vengeance ever comes! Emily Dickinson

Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel

Cherry-Picking Pope Francis

Sep 25 15 • • 1 comment

This pope is neither liberal nor conservative.

The Married Life of St. Gianna, Patron of the World Meeting of Families

The Married Life of St. Gianna, Patron of the World Meeting of Families

Sep 25 15 • • 0 comments

As The World Meeting of Families draws to a close, we can all take a moment to pray to one of the meeting’s patron saints, St. Gianna Molla. (The other patron saint, also dear to my heart, is Pope John Paul II.) St. Gianna is easier to relate to than many earlier female saints who […]

The Playgrounds of War I

An Immoral Quandary

Sep 24 15 • • 1 comment

Participation in the global community of nations has always required compromises, sometimes uncomfortable ones. How the United States confronts these issues generally depends on the current ideological temperament holding sway in the Oval Office and among the American people in general. One thing any student of foreign affairs quickly learns is that when it comes […]

Movie Review: <em>War Room</em>

Movie Review: War Room

The War Room is a winning film about prayer. A film about prayer? How do you make such a thing? Why would you make such a thing? Who would make such a thing? Obviously, the Kendrick Brothers are at it again (Facing Giants, Fireproof, Courageous). War Room is their best yet. It’s definitely a film […]

Expanding Opportunities for the Poor in Their Homeland

Expanding Opportunities for the Poor in Their Homeland

Sep 23 15 • • 0 comments

There is intense discussion currently about changing the U.S. immigration system so that thousands or even millions more people can easily become citizens. Oftentimes underlying this talk is the belief that the U.S. will always be prosperous and poor nations will always be poor, so the only way to help is by letting the poor […]

Poem: "Godzilla's Parents"

Poem: “Godzilla’s Parents”

Sep 23 15 • • 0 comments

Godzilla’s Parents It was a lizard’s DNA Invigorated by an A- Bomb test and grown a size so huge There could be from it no refuge A beast emerging from the sea Supercharged at Bikini, An accident without designer, No thanks to Teller, Oppenheimer I saw it on a movie screen, The biggest lizard ever […]

Is China’s One Child Policy Coming to an End?

Is China’s One Child Policy Coming to an End?

By Steven Mosher and Jonathan Abbamonte Will the Chinese Communist Party loosen the stranglehold it has had on reproduction since the late seventies? There has been much speculation that the 13 th Five-Year Plan, to be released next month, will significantly relax the well-known One Child Policy. If the regime does back away from its […]

Syrian Prelate Bemoans Christian Exodus

Syrian Prelate Bemoans Christian Exodus

Sep 22 15 • • 0 comments

By Marta Petrosillo ROME—“We Christians are determined to stay on in Syria and continue to give our witness.” Grim-faced and speaking with determination, Chaldean Archbishop Antoine Audo of Aleppo, Syria, addressed media here today. The archbishop commented on the mass exodus of Syrians, spurred on in recent weeks by the welcome shown by some European […]

Poem: "Friends One Flesh"

Poem: “Friends One Flesh”

Sep 18 15 • • 0 comments

Friends One Flesh Everyone needs someone to say always forever. Everyone needs someone to say never alone. Everyone needs someone to say here together. Everyone needs someone to say this is home. I’ll be that someone who tells you forever, That someone who sees you’re never alone. That someone who says here now together, That […]

The American Constitution: Why It Endures

The American Constitution: Why It Endures

Sep 17 15 • • 2 comments

September 17th is Constitution Day.

<em>Laudato Si</em> with My Children

Laudato Si with My Children

Sep 17 15 • • 0 comments

Reading Laudato Si was like falling in love. For my husband and me, it brought back memories of the exciting early mornings of twelve years ago. Newly enraptured with Catholic teaching, we would rise early with a pot of coffee and our books – him with the Catechism of the Catholic Church and me with […]

Scientific Moral Regress

Scientific Moral Regress

Sep 17 15 • • 1 comment

More scientific progress? In the wake of news videos about slicing up and testing the remains of aborted babies, leave it to leading scientific researchers to continue to push the envelope.  The Hinxton group (a group of stem cell researchers, policy wonks, and bioethicists) is calling for reopening the debate over altering the DNA of […]