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Judge Kavanaugh… The One Right That Matters To The “Pro-Choice” Crowd

October 11, 2018 Featured Today Comments Off on Judge Kavanaugh… The One Right That Matters To The “Pro-Choice” Crowd

By JACK KENNY Watching and listening to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island incredibly grill Judge Brett Kavanaugh, line by line, over the contents of the latter’s high school yearbook, is to recall the words written by William Faulkner and revived a few years ago by Barak Obama. “The past is not dead. It isn’t even past.” And apparently, high school never ends. And in the United States Senate, mendacity knows no bounds. Democrats cry there is too much at stake to allow Brett Kavanaugh, intelligent conservative and Jesuit-educated Catholic, to sit on the highest court in the land. And while it is not exactly true that with Kavanaugh on board, the Supreme Court will surely vote to overturn the…Continue Reading

Archbishop Chaput… Youth Synod Depends On Faith, Not Sentimentality

October 10, 2018 Featured Today Comments Off on Archbishop Chaput… Youth Synod Depends On Faith, Not Sentimentality

ROME (CNA) — In an op-ed column published September 29, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia restated his concerns about the then-upcoming Synod of Bishops on young adults and faith and vocational discernment, which began October 3. The column was published in the Italian newspaper Il Foglio. According to Chaput, after the Pennsylvania statewide grand jury report, and abuse problems in Chile, Germany and elsewhere, “the Church is in turmoil.” “In this turbulent environment, the Holy See will host a world synod of bishops, October 3-28, in Rome. Keyed to the theme of ‘young people, faith, and vocational discernment,’ a more ironic, and more difficult, confluence of bad facts at a bad time for the meeting can hardly be imagined.” The…Continue Reading

A Book Review… An Account Of De Gaulle Equal To The Man Himself

October 9, 2018 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review… An Account Of De Gaulle Equal To The Man Himself

By JUDE DOUGHERTY Jackson, Julian. De Gaulle. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018; 887 pages. Julian Jackson ends part one of this hefty volume with a quotation: “Without the Peloponnesian War, Demosthenes would have been an obscure politician, without the Norman Invasion, Joan of Arc would have died peacefully at Domrémy, without the Revolution, Carnot and Napoleon would have finished their existence in low rank, without the present war, General Petain would have finished his career as the head of a brigade.” The words are taken from a lecture by Charles de Gaulle. Then Jackson adds his own thought: “Without the fall of France, de Gaulle would have become a leading general of the French Army, probably a minister of defense,…Continue Reading

The Divine Samaritan: The Church’s Knight In Shining Armor

October 8, 2018 Featured Today Comments Off on The Divine Samaritan: The Church’s Knight In Shining Armor

By JAMES MONTI We have all heard and read countless times our Lord’s Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37) with its obvious message of duty to those in need, a message that has made the expression “Good Samaritan” a household word even among non-Christians. Clearly our Lord intends us to understand from this parable that in attending to the needy and the suffering we are attending to Him — that the dying man by the side of the road in the parable is Christ Himself. Yet there is another less obvious dimension to this narrative by which our Lord reveals His own mission to us — that the Good Samaritan is Christ and the dying man by the wayside…Continue Reading

Catholic Morality: Some Helpful Definitions

October 7, 2018 Featured Today Comments Off on Catholic Morality: Some Helpful Definitions

By DONALD DeMARCO In the interest of clarity, it is necessary to define what we mean by the words “Catholic” and “morality.” “Catholic” is used in two different senses. The first is what we may call the “sociological” meaning that conceptualizes “Catholic” in terms of how Catholics behave. In this sense, Catholics who are living their faith and those who are not are mixed together. “Catholic” becomes an umbrella term that applies to any Catholic who calls himself a Catholic. Here, practice is separated from any unifying standard. The second meaning, which is the proper one, views Catholics as those who are living their faith and abiding by the teachings the Church has honored throughout her history. A Catholic, then,…Continue Reading

New Ordinations In Finland… This Country Shows Remarkable Catholic Growth

October 6, 2018 Featured Today Comments Off on New Ordinations In Finland… This Country Shows Remarkable Catholic Growth

By ALBERTO CAROSA HELSINKI, Finland — August and September are bound to go down in history of Catholic Finland as two important months for the growth of the Catholic community in this Nordic country, with probably one of the fastest growing local churches, both in terms of conversions and of vocations. On August 11, Tuomas Nyyssola was ordained as the ninth native priest since the Reformation in the ancient and imposing church of St. Lawrence in Lohja, about an hour’s drive east of Helsinki. Over 600 Catholic and non-Catholic attendees witnessed his Ordination. The Ordination liturgy was graced by the presence, in the first pew, of a number of representatives of the Order of the Most Holy Savior of St.…Continue Reading

HHS Stops Funds For Aborted Baby Parts

October 5, 2018 Featured Today Comments Off on HHS Stops Funds For Aborted Baby Parts

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has terminated the contract between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Advanced Bioscience Resources (ABR), which would have used taxpayer dollars to fund the use of aborted fetal tissue for research, according to a September 25 report from Liberty Counsel. National and state pro-life leaders recently sent a letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar urging the government to end the taxpayer-funded use of aborted fetal tissue for research. The letter read, in part: “We were shocked and dismayed at the news report that the FDA has signed a contract to purchase ‘fresh’ aborted fetal organs from ABR, for the purpose of creating humanized mice with human immune…Continue Reading

Romanitas, Wheat And Tares, Holy Russia

October 4, 2018 Featured Today Comments Off on Romanitas, Wheat And Tares, Holy Russia

By GEORGE A. KENDALL One of the things likely to be an obstacle to the reform of the Church (something which needs to be done yesterday) is a subculture that reigns supreme in the Vatican and is known as Romanitas. From what I am told, one of Romanitas’ principal effects on behavior has been a whole pattern of speech and communication where clear, straightforward speech is carefully avoided and would, indeed, be regarded as a serious breach of etiquette were someone so rash as to engage in it (something like the academic world, actually). It creates an atmosphere where people talk around and around something without ever clearly specifying what the something might be (think of Dickens’ Circumlocution Office), where…Continue Reading

A Movie Review . . . Gosnell: A Terrific Film About A Horrific Man

October 3, 2018 Featured Today Comments Off on A Movie Review . . . Gosnell: A Terrific Film About A Horrific Man

By REY FLORES Based on the true story of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the movie Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer takes audiences behind the scenes of the investigation and trial of the man who deserves his title. Gosnell is not only a terrific film about a horrific man: It’s also a testament to all of the hard work the entire pro-life movement has done since even before Roe v. Wade became the law of the land in 1973. The mere fact that this film was completed and is about to be released on October 12 nationwide is a miracle in and of itself. It’s a miracle because of the difficulties encountered by filmmakers, now working on the under…Continue Reading

A Report On Progress

October 2, 2018 Featured Today Comments Off on A Report On Progress

By DONALD DeMARCO I was addressing a group of high school students on a Toronto TV program. One of the students voiced his complaint that I was making reference to old dead guys of the past. It was a complaint that I had heard too many times. I saw it as indicating youth’s enthusiasm for progress and disdain for the past. I had mentioned, among others, Martin Buber. Should we relegate this fine theologian/philosopher to oblivion? Is he no longer relevant? His notion of “I-Thou” has been refined, amplified, and applied to the fields of psychology and philosophy. It is a handy way of remembering that our whole being is involved in the “I-Thou” relationship whereas the “I-It” relationship involves…Continue Reading