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Dispute Over Papal Foundation’s $25 Million Grant Approval Continues

April 25, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Dispute Over Papal Foundation’s $25 Million Grant Approval Continues

By KEVIN JONES VATICAN CITY (CNA) — Scrutiny continues for the U.S.-based Papal Foundation, amid questions of whether some of its grant activity was motivated by a desire to secure leniency for disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick. The ongoing controversy surrounds the foundation’s decision to make an unprecedented grant to a leading Italian hospital whose former leadership had faced accusations of massive embezzlement and financial misconduct. Donald Cardinal Wuerl, the outgoing archbishop of Washington, D.C., made “false and misleading” statements about the grantee to the foundation board, said Matthew B. O’Brien, a Philadelphia-based writer, in an April 12 essay for First Things. O’Brien cited several people involved with the Papal Foundation who spoke on background and provided copies of foundation…Continue Reading

A Book Review… A Renaissance Man Looks At Human Worth

April 24, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review… A Renaissance Man Looks At Human Worth

By JUDE DOUGHERTY Manetti, Giannozzo. On Human Worth and Excellence. Edited and translated by Brian P. Copenhaver; Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press, I Tatti Renaissance Library, pp LI + 362. One does not have to be a Renaissance historian or know much medieval philosophy or theology to appreciate this delightful book. On Human Worth and Excellence was completed in 1452, less than a decade before the author’s death in 1459 at the age of 63. First a note about the origin of this volume. The present book is just one of the many major literary, historical, philosophical, and scientific works of the Italian Renaissance that the Harvard University Press is reproducing in the English language from the I Tatti Renaissance…Continue Reading

A Book Review . . . Make A Devotional Journey Into The Mass

April 23, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review . . . Make A Devotional Journey Into The Mass

By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY A Devotional Journey Into the Mass: How Mass Can Become a Time of Grace, Nourishment, and Devotion, by Christopher Carstens (144 pages, Sophia Institute Press, Paperback and Kindle). Visit www.sophiainstitute.com or call 1-800-888-9344. A Devotional Journey Into the Mass is an in-depth study of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and the first thing that struck this reviewer on glancing through the table of contents is that Christopher Carstens devotes a whole chapter, ten pages, just to the topic, “How to Make the Sign of the Cross.” So this is no rushed description of the Mass, but rather a slow-motion appreciation of how we can fully enter into the spirit of the liturgy at Mass. The book is really…Continue Reading

Memento Mori… The Danger Of Being Ultra-Nice

April 21, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Memento Mori… The Danger Of Being Ultra-Nice

By DONALD DeMARCO A man wakes up in his nice apartment and, while having a nice cup of coffee, is told by a nice radio voice that the weather will be nice. He drives his nice car through his nice neighborhood and is wished a nice day, verbally by the teller at the bank and silently on his printed receipt. Niceness characterizes his day. It is a national virtue and should not be questioned. And yet, can we be satisfied with a life that has nothing more to show for itself than our being nice? Can niceness be our passport to Paradise? Christ never wished us to have a nice day. He required us to love our neighbor, to pick…Continue Reading

A Book Review… A Renaissance Man Looks At Human Worth

April 20, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review… A Renaissance Man Looks At Human Worth

By JUDE DOUGHERTY Manetti, Giannozzo. On Human Worth and Excellence. Edited and translated by Brian P. Copenhaver; Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press, I Tatti Renaissance Library, pp LI + 362. One does not have to be a Renaissance historian or know much medieval philosophy or theology to appreciate this delightful book. On Human Worth and Excellence was completed in 1452, less than a decade before the author’s death in 1459 at the age of 63. First a note about the origin of this volume. The present book is just one of the many major literary, historical, philosophical, and scientific works of the Italian Renaissance that the Harvard University Press is reproducing in the English language from the I Tatti Renaissance…Continue Reading

Dispute Over Papal Foundation’s $25 Million Grant Approval Continues

April 19, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Dispute Over Papal Foundation’s $25 Million Grant Approval Continues

By KEVIN JONES VATICAN CITY (CNA) — Scrutiny continues for the U.S.-based Papal Foundation, amid questions of whether some of its grant activity was motivated by a desire to secure leniency for disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick. The ongoing controversy surrounds the foundation’s decision to make an unprecedented grant to a leading Italian hospital whose former leadership had faced accusations of massive embezzlement and financial misconduct. Donald Cardinal Wuerl, the outgoing archbishop of Washington, D.C., made “false and misleading” statements about the grantee to the foundation board, said Matthew B. O’Brien, a Philadelphia-based writer, in an April 12 essay for First Things. O’Brien cited several people involved with the Papal Foundation who spoke on background and provided copies of foundation…Continue Reading

First Time In 300 Years… Rome’s Holy Stairs Are Uncovered

April 18, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on First Time In 300 Years… Rome’s Holy Stairs Are Uncovered

By HANNAH BROCKHAUS ROME (CNA) — The bare, white marble of Rome’s “Scala Sancta,” which are believed to be the stairs trod by Christ on the day of His trial and death, are now exposed and visible to pilgrims for the first time in almost 300 years. The stairs, encased in wood since the 1700s, will be uncovered for veneration from April 11 to June 9, the Feast of Pentecost. During this time, pilgrims may ascend the marble steps on their knees. “We thought this opportunity was important,” Paolo Violini, the head of the restoration of the staircase, told EWTN. He said the idea to open the Holy Stairs to the public came when they removed the wood to restore…Continue Reading

A Book Review . . . St. Peter Of Alcantara Tells Us How To Pray And Meditate

April 17, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review . . . St. Peter Of Alcantara Tells Us How To Pray And Meditate

By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY Treatise on Prayer and Meditation, by St. Peter of Alcantara (212 pages, TAN Books & Publishers Inc., paperback and Kindle). Visit www.tanbooks.com, or call 1-800-437-5876. St. Peter of Alcantara (1499-1562) was born in Spain, and became a Franciscan friar in a strict observance friary. He was ordained in 1524, and went on to become a well-known preacher. He lived an extremely austere life and developed a reputation for great holiness, and for miraculous powers and prophetic insights. Later on, he lived a stricter eremitical life, and became one of the spiritual directors of St. Teresa of Avila, encouraging her in her Carmelite reforms. He lived during the tumultuous times when the effects of the Reformation and…Continue Reading

Liberty Counsel Says Counseling Ban Violates Free Speech

April 16, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Liberty Counsel Says Counseling Ban Violates Free Speech

ATLANTA — Liberty Counsel filed a brief April 11 in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in an appeal challenging the constitutionality of ordinances enacted by the City of Boca Raton and Palm Beach County, which prohibit minors from receiving voluntary counseling from licensed professionals to reduce or eliminate unwanted same-sex attractions or behaviors, or gender confusion. The appeal is from an order signed by U.S. District Court Judge Robin Rosenberg denying a preliminary injunction blocking the ordinances which was sought by Liberty Counsel on behalf of Dr. Robert Otto, LMFT, Dr. Julie Hamilton, LMFT, and their minor clients. These licensed therapists provide life-saving counseling to minors who want to conform their attractions, behaviors, and gender identities to their sincerely…Continue Reading

Talking About Pro-Life Progress

April 15, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Talking About Pro-Life Progress

By FR. SHENAN J. BOQUET (Editor’s Note: This article is reprinted with permission of Human Life International, www.hli.org. It first appeared at www.hli.org on April 8, 2019. Fr. Boquet is the president of HLI.) + + + “To claim the right to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others. This is the death of true freedom: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin’” (John 8:34) — Pope St. John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, n. 20. + + + To anyone who’s been paying attention, it’s clear that…Continue Reading