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Iconoclasm’s Evil War Against The Sacred… The Beeldenstorm Of 1566 And How Catholic Artists Fought Back

July 10, 2020 Featured Today Comments Off on Iconoclasm’s Evil War Against The Sacred… The Beeldenstorm Of 1566 And How Catholic Artists Fought Back

By JAMES MONTI Part 1 “. . . The enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary! / Thy foes have roared in the midst of thy holy place . . . / At the upper entrance they hacked the wooden trellis with axes. / And then all its carved wood / they broke down with hatchets and hammers / They set thy sanctuary on fire; / to the ground they desecrated the dwelling place of thy name . . . / they burned all the meeting places of God in the land” (Psalm 74:3-8).On Christmas morning in the year 1554, the faithful of Tournai, Belgium, were attending Mass at a side chapel in the city’s cathedral church when a stranger…Continue Reading

The Rotten Fruit Of Our Indifference To Corruption

July 9, 2020 Featured Today Comments Off on The Rotten Fruit Of Our Indifference To Corruption

By DEACON ANTHONY BARRASSO (Editor’s Note: Deacon Barrasso serves in a Maryland parish.) + + The word “independent” describes a person or entity who is not subject to control, guidance, opinion, or need of another. We Americans celebrate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by our Founding Fathers who understood that there is no such thing for humanity as “independence.”George Washington said, “It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible” (Farewell Address, 1796). But we have tried to govern ourselves without God since Adam and Eve, forgetting that those who are guilty of sin are their own worst enemies (Tobit 12:10). The separation of church and state would not have been approved by the…Continue Reading

Supreme Court Says Bye-Bye Blaines… High Court Rules That Archaic, Anti-Religious Law Is Unconstitutional

July 8, 2020 Featured Today Comments Off on Supreme Court Says Bye-Bye Blaines… High Court Rules That Archaic, Anti-Religious Law Is Unconstitutional

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Supreme Court ruled in favor of three low-income Montana mothers on June 30, reviving a state tax-credit program designed to generate private scholarships for Montana students to attend private schools of their choice. In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the Montana Supreme Court struck down the scholarship program, claiming that it would violate the state’s Blaine Amendment, an archaic anti-religious law that forbids any direct or indirect aid to schools owned or operated by a “church, sect, or denomination.”The Supreme Court has overturned the Montana Supreme Court’s ruling and made it clear that children in Montana cannot be stripped of their right to participate in a scholarship program simply because they attend religious schools.In an…Continue Reading

Liberty Counsel . . . Calls U.S. Supreme Court Louisiana Ruling A Supreme Blunder

July 7, 2020 Featured Today Comments Off on Liberty Counsel . . . Calls U.S. Supreme Court Louisiana Ruling A Supreme Blunder

WASHINGTON, D.D. — The U.S. Supreme Court released a plurality 4-1-4 opinion siding with the lower District Court that struck down the Louisiana state law known as the “Unsafe Abortion Protection Act,” which requires doctors performing abortions to have admission privileges at a state-authorized hospital within 30 miles of the abortion center. Liberty Counsel reported on the decision on June 29.All doctors in Louisiana at outpatient surgical facilities, except abortion centers, must have admitting privileges at a local hospital.Four justices (Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan) concluded that the state was barred from raising standing because they did not press that argument in the lower courts (even though the Court of Appeals ruled on standing), and that the findings of the…Continue Reading

Church Attendance Vs. Protests . . . De Blasio And Cuomo Get Creamed In Court

July 6, 2020 Featured Today Comments Off on Church Attendance Vs. Protests . . . De Blasio And Cuomo Get Creamed In Court

By BILL DONOHUE Protesters can take to the streets, some violently, and that is okay by Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo — the mob does not have to abide by social distancing rules — but religious New Yorkers cannot congregate in their houses of worship lest they imperil the public health.Well, the jig is up.U.S. District Court Judge Gary Sharpe issued a preliminary injunction on June 26 saying that de Blasio and Cuomo (as well as Attorney General Letitia James) exceeded their authority by putting restrictions on people of faith while simultaneously condoning the protests.By allowing the protests, they were “encouraging what they knew was a flagrant disregard of the outdoor limits and social distancing rules.” In…Continue Reading

Open To Everything, Dedicated To Nothing

July 5, 2020 Featured Today Comments Off on Open To Everything, Dedicated To Nothing

By DONALD DeMARCO “Merely having an open mind is nothing,” wrote G. K. Chesterton. “The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”We have elevated “openness” to the status of a principle and in the process have forgotten what it is that we should select. Therefore, we are left hungry. Political correctness, the attempt to please everyone, is a restaurant without a menu, a church without dogma, a life without purpose. When we are open to everything, we find ourselves dedicated to nothing.Fulton J. Sheen explains, in his monumental work, Life of Christ (1958), the essential dynamism of the Catholic Church which holds it together and gives it both meaning…Continue Reading

Now It’s Woodrow Wilson’s Turn

July 4, 2020 Featured Today Comments Off on Now It’s Woodrow Wilson’s Turn

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN Now that statues of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, and Theodore Roosevelt have been desecrated, vandalized, toppled, and smashed, it appears Woodrow Wilson’s time has come.The Cultural Revolution has come to the Ivy League.Though Wilson attended Princeton as an undergraduate, taught there and served from 1902 to 1910 as president, his name is to be removed from Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs.And why is this icon of American liberals to be so dishonored?Because Thomas Woodrow Wilson disbelieved in racial equality.Says Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber: “Wilson’s racist opinions and policies make him an inappropriate namesake.” Moreover, Wilson’s “racism was significant and consequential even by the standards of his own time.”And what exactly were Wilson’s…Continue Reading

Nevada Church Says Governor Treats Churches Worse Than Casinos

July 3, 2020 Featured Today Comments Off on Nevada Church Says Governor Treats Churches Worse Than Casinos

RENO — Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Ryan Tucker, director of the ADF Center for Christian Ministries, issued a statement explaining ADF’s appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on behalf of Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley.The Nevada church is challenging Gov. Steve Sisolak’s church gathering ban that allows casinos, restaurants, theme parks, and gyms to operate at 50 percent capacity but restricts churches to gatherings of 50 or fewer people.“If crowds of hundreds to thousands of people can meet in casinos for hours to play the slots or blackjack, then churches should also be able to meet with appropriate health and safety precautions,” stated Tucker.“Unfortunately, the district court failed to halt this rule. The government can…Continue Reading

Vandals Deface Image Of Poland’s Black Madonna In Dutch City

July 2, 2020 Featured Today Comments Off on Vandals Deface Image Of Poland’s Black Madonna In Dutch City

(CNA) — The mayor of a Dutch town has condemned vandals who defaced an image of Our Lady of Czestochowa and daubed the letters “BLM” beneath it.Paul Depla, the mayor of Breda, a city in the southern Netherlands, said the incident was “particularly sad for the Polish community, for which the monument is of great value,” the Dutch regional newspaper BN DeStem reported June 22.The image of our Lady, which is revered by Poles and also known as the Black Madonna, was erected in a park in Breda in 1954 in thanksgiving for the city’s liberation from the Nazis.The Polish 1st Armored Division, commanded by Gen. Stanislaw Maczek, freed the city on October 29, 1944. After the war, 40,000 inhabitants…Continue Reading

The Rosary: A Prayer For Our Time

July 1, 2020 Featured Today Comments Off on The Rosary: A Prayer For Our Time

By LAWRENCE P. GRAYSON Christianity throughout the world is under siege and needs the help of God. The global increase of militant theological fundamentalism and its antithesis, radical secularism, have led to the widespread persecution of religious minorities and have had devastating effects on doctrinal beliefs, the traditional family, the sanctity of life, and even the nature of humanity.In 2019, according to World Watch List, 245 million Christians worldwide experienced high levels of persecution based on their faith. For that same year, 2019, Worldometer recorded 42.3 million abortions globally, making it the planet’s leading source of death; all other causes combined, including disease, illness, violence, and natural disasters accounted for 58.6 million. And throughout Western nations, there is a growing…Continue Reading