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Matrimony As A Living Symbol Of The Love Between Christ And His Church

October 3, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Matrimony As A Living Symbol Of The Love Between Christ And His Church

By JAMES MONTI From the very beginning of her existence, the Church has seen herself as a bride, “the wife of the Lamb” as she is called in the Book of Revelation (Rev. 21:9), “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev. 21:2). This nuptial imagery, which references in a particular manner the unitive dimension of marriage, has permeated the Church’s life for two millennia, expressed not only in the surpassing analogy of the bond between Christ and His Church, but also the bond between God and the soul, the spiritual bonds formed by vocations to the priesthood and consecrated religious life, the Church’s vision of the spiritual life and ascetical theology, the unique witness of martyrdom, and even…Continue Reading

German Bishops Vote To Adopt Statutes For Synodal Assembly

October 2, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on German Bishops Vote To Adopt Statutes For Synodal Assembly

By ED CONDON FULDA, Germany (CNA) — The bishops of Germany have voted to adopt a set of statutes for their long-planned “Synodal Assembly.” The decision was taken in a vote on Wednesday, September 25, the final day of the plenary session of the German bishops’ conference. [Wanderer Editor’s Note: See p. 8B for a commentary on the Church in Germany by Fr. John L. Ubel, rector of the Cathedral of St. Paul, St. Paul, Minn.] The bishops voted to adopt the statutes by a margin of 51-12 with 1 abstention. The vote followed hours of debate concerning several amendments. Various changes were proposed and considered in response to Vatican concerns that a previous draft of the plans was “not…Continue Reading

ADF Says Arkansas State Should Be Penalized For Free Speech Violation

October 1, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on ADF Says Arkansas State Should Be Penalized For Free Speech Violation

JONESBORO, Ark. — A student and student organization appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on September 19 after a federal district court ruling provided no consequences for Arkansas State University officials for their violation of student free speech rights under the First Amendment. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys represent the student, Ashlyn Hoggard, and the campus chapter of Turning Point USA, of which she is a member. Turning Point USA is a conservative nonprofit organization. The two filed suit against Arkansas State officials in 2017 for kicking Hoggard and another individual off the patio in front of the Student Union and threatening her with a violation of the student code of conduct simply for setting up…Continue Reading

Meditation On A Peach Stone

September 30, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Meditation On A Peach Stone

By DONALD DeMARCO I began my breakfast one morning in recent memory with a peach, one that had reached its zenith of ripeness. Succulent, juicy, and pleasing to the palate, its consumption was an auspicious way to inaugurate the day. But, on further inspection, this tasty globe of fruit fell short of perfection. A stone, hidden in the center, warned me to be careful. I did not want to chip a tooth. Why must this stony inconvenience be part of an otherwise splendid morsel? Not completely satisfied with this gustatory delight, I began thinking about the arrival of stone-less peaches sometime in the future. We now have seedless grapes, seedless apples, and seedless watermelons. One pundit has welcomed the future…Continue Reading

Will “Ukraine-Gate” Imperil Biden’s Bid?

September 29, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Will “Ukraine-Gate” Imperil Biden’s Bid?

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN With the revelation by an intel community “whistleblower” that President Donald Trump, in a congratulatory call to the new president of Ukraine, pushed him repeatedly to investigate the Joe Biden family connection to Ukrainian corruption, the cry “Impeach!” is being heard anew in the land. But revisiting how this latest scandal came about, and how it has begun to unfold, it is a good bet that the principal casualty could be the former vice president. Consider: In May 2016, Joe Biden, as Barack Obama’s designated point man on Ukraine, flew to Kiev to inform President Petro Poroshenko that a billion-dollar U.S. loan guarantee had been approved to enable Kiev to continue to service its mammoth debt.…Continue Reading

Some Reflections… Self-Limitation And The Infinite Longing

September 28, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Some Reflections… Self-Limitation And The Infinite Longing

By GEORGE A. KENDALL The longer I hear people talking about their “bucket lists,” the more irritated I get. A bucket list is a list of things you want to do before you die, a list you draw up if you are old or terminally ill or otherwise don’t expect to live much longer. The idea is that there are pleasures you want to enjoy while there is still time, because once you are dead there is nothing more, certainly no pleasures. In other words, the whole idea makes sense only on the assumption either that there is nothing after death, or if there is something, it is worse than what we have now. It reflects a utilitarian worldview which…Continue Reading

So Long, St. Adalbert… Chicago Will Miss You

September 27, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on So Long, St. Adalbert… Chicago Will Miss You

By REY FLORES So, another Catholic parish dies in Chicago. Why? What is it that is causing these once-thriving parishes to shut their doors forever? Is it the lack of interest by the communities around them? Declining Mass attendance? Or is it the lack of interest by the bishops and the archdiocesan bureaucracy to keep these parishes operating? Perhaps it’s all of the money lost in the many lawsuits the archdiocese has had to settle because of the sexual abuse that went unchecked for decades. It’s a combination of all of these things. Cities like Chicago experienced much rapid change in the last 40 to 50 years. There were the unscrupulous real estate entities in the late 1960s and the…Continue Reading

Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic… A Small Judicial Victory Against Secularism

September 26, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic… A Small Judicial Victory Against Secularism

By STEPHEN M. KRASON (Editor’s Note: Stephen M. Krason’s Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic column appears monthly [sometimes bi-monthly] in Crisis. He is professor of political science and legal studies and associate director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is also co-founder and president of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists and a lawyer. Among his books are: Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution; Liberalism, Conservatism, and Catholicism; The Transformation of the American Democratic Republic; Catholicism and American Political Ideologies, and a Catholic political novel, American Cincinnatus. The views expressed here are his own.) + + + In early August the Freedom From Religion Foundation, secularist bullies who go around…Continue Reading

How The Amazon Synod… Promotes The Worship Of “Mother Earth”

September 25, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on How The Amazon Synod… Promotes The Worship Of “Mother Earth”

By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KHS, KM How are we to worship “Mother Earth”? It is clear that we must adopt the rites and customs of indigenous jungle dwellers. Not a single mention of the primitive lifestyles, barbarism, slash and burn, and child sacrifice that can accompany these cultures. “The understanding of Amazonian life is characterized by connectivity between God and [wait for it!] various spiritual forces” (Instrumentum Laboris, n. 13). And more like that: “A cosmic dimension of experience palpitates within the families…in harmony with nature and in dialogue with the spirits” (Instrumentum Laboris, n. 75). Outright paganism. Aren’t the missionaries supposed to have driven out the evil spirits and stopped their worship? Are the spiritual forces now to be…Continue Reading

“Locked And Loaded” For War On Iran?

September 24, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on “Locked And Loaded” For War On Iran?

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN “Iran has launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply,” declared Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Putting America’s credibility on the line, Pompeo accused Iran of carrying out the devastating attack on Saudi oil facilities that halted half of the kingdom’s oil production, 5.7 million barrels a day. On Sunday, September 15 President Donald Trump did not identify Iran as the attacking nation, but did appear, in a tweet, to back up the secretary of state: “There is reason to believe that we know the culprit, are locked and loaded depending on verification, but are waiting to hear from the Kingdom (of Saudi Arabia) as to who they believe was the cause of this attack…Continue Reading