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We Live In A Fully Furnished Universe

August 14, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on We Live In A Fully Furnished Universe

By DONALD DeMARCO Imagine a small spheroid — a baseball — traveling through the air. A group of scientists studies it carefully and determines its velocity, its spin rate, its wind resistance, and it deviations along its trajectory. The scientists do this with scientific precision and are prepared to tell the world all about the whirling adventures of this flying orb. But what they cannot determine, given their limited field of study, is the baseball’s efficient and final causes. The thin slice of reality they examine is too small for such determinations. Herein lies a problem for scientists. They can examine what they can see and measure, but the purpose of the flight of the baseball remains hidden from them.…Continue Reading

In The Aftermath Of The 2016 Earthquakes . . . The New Benedictine Monastery In Norcia Is A Sign Of Hope

August 13, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on In The Aftermath Of The 2016 Earthquakes . . . The New Benedictine Monastery In Norcia Is A Sign Of Hope

By ALBERTO CAROSA NORCIA, Italy — As reported by ANSA, on July 18, 2019, the president of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, called upon the competent authorities to speed up the reconstruction of the town of Amatrice and all areas in central Italy hit by earthquakes three years ago. “The dream of reconstruction must . . . go forward on all fronts to . . . remove the mark of precariousness,” he said during a visit to the Romolo Capranica campus in Amatrice. “The future of Italy is at stake here. But we must act quickly,” the president said in response to an appeal by a student who had said that she dreamed of “going back to living in real homes.” We…Continue Reading

Exploiting Massacres To Raise Poll Ratings

August 12, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Exploiting Massacres To Raise Poll Ratings

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN It was two days of contrast that tell us about America 2019. In El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, following the mass murders of Saturday and Sunday morning, the local folks on camera — police, prosecutors, mayors, FBI, and city officials — were nonpartisan, patient, polite, and dignified in the unity and solemnity of their grief for their dead and wounded. But for the Democratic presidential candidates, the El Paso atrocity was like a loose football in the Super Bowl. A mad scramble broke out over who would be first and most savage in indicting President Donald Trump for moral complicity in mass murder. Never let a crisis go to waste is an old political adage.…Continue Reading

Amid JPII Institute Controversy . . . Benedict XVI Meets With Recently Dismissed Professor

August 11, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Amid JPII Institute Controversy . . . Benedict XVI Meets With Recently Dismissed Professor

VATICAN CITY (CNA) — Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI met August 1 with a recently dismissed professor of moral theology at Rome’s Pontifical John Paul II Institute, amid ongoing controversy regarding recent changes to the Institute. Benedict XVI invited Msgr. Livio Melina to meet with him on that date, a source close to Melina told Catholic News Agency. The Pope Emeritus “wanted to receive Prof. Mons. Livio Melina at a private audience. After a long discussion of the recent events at the Pontifical Institute John Paul II, he granted his blessing, expressing his personal solidarity and assuring him of his closeness in prayer.” Melina, who was president of the John Paul II Institute from 2006 until 2016, was dismissed from the…Continue Reading

Root Cause Of Mass Shootings Is Rootlessness

August 10, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Root Cause Of Mass Shootings Is Rootlessness

By BILL DONOHUE As a sociologist who has taught criminology and written about mass shootings, it is distressing to listen to all the chatter about Republicans and Democrats being blamed for the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. Most of the talk is pure bunk. At the heart of the problem are what I call the three “B’s”: beliefs, bonds, and boundaries (see my book The Catholic Advantage for the details). It is not people of faith who are the most likely to go on a shooting rampage; it is those who have no religious convictions. This does not mean that simply being an agnostic or an atheist is sufficient to cause someone to become a mass murderer. That’s…Continue Reading

But Some Say Issues Remain… John Paul II Institute Responds To Student And Faculty Criticisms

August 9, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on But Some Say Issues Remain… John Paul II Institute Responds To Student And Faculty Criticisms

By J.D. FLYNN VATICAN CITY (CNA) — The Pontifical John Paul II Institute issued a statement Monday, July 29 defending recent changes at the school. But some students and faculty members say that explanations do not address the full picture of issues at the theological institute. “The academic project of the new Institute, approved by the Congregation for Catholic Education, is designed as a widening of reflection on the family, and not as a replacement of themes and topics. Such expansion, showing even more the centrality of the family in the church and in society, confirms and relaunches with new vigor the original and still fruitful intuition of St. John Paul II,” the July 29 press release said. The statement…Continue Reading

Neither Right Nor Left, But Catholic . . . Challenging The Courts: It’s Long Overdue

August 8, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Neither Right Nor Left, But Catholic . . . Challenging The Courts: It’s Long Overdue

By STEPHEN M. KRASON (Editor’s Note: Stephen M. Krason’s Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic column appears monthly [sometimes bi-monthly]. 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. This column originally appeared in Crisismagazine.com. The views expressed here are his own.) + + + The governor of Alaska, Mike Dunleavy, made national news…Continue Reading

A Book Review… An Inspiring Read To Increase Devotion To Padre Pio

August 7, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review… An Inspiring Read To Increase Devotion To Padre Pio

By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY Amazing Miracles of Padre Pio: And the Stories Behind Them by Frank M. Rega (219 pages, Paperback and Kindle); available at Amazon.com. Frank M. Rega’s Amazing Miracles of Padre Pio details many of the saint’s numerous miracles in thirty chapters, and begins with a dedication from the author addressed to “those who do not yet believe in miracles.” This is, of course, rather ironic, since Padre Pio’s life was really one long cavalcade of miracles both of physical healing and spiritual healing in the confessional. And not only was he a miracle worker, but he was also a stigmatist who bore the wounds of Christ. Padre Pio was born in Pietrelcina in central Italy in 1887…Continue Reading

Why One Expert Says… Communism Is “Anathema To Religion”

August 6, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Why One Expert Says… Communism Is “Anathema To Religion”

By CHRISTINE ROUSELLE WASHINGTON, D.C. (CNA) — The Catholic Church’s teachings on economics and government have a tendency to frustrate anyone committed to a political ideology. The Church has condemned both unrestrained capitalism, as well as communism, socialism, and totalitarianism. But a column recently published in America magazine, entitled “The Catholic Case for Communism,” by Dean Dettloff, has resurrected questions about whether it is permissible for a Catholic to be a communist. “Christianity and communism have obviously had a complicated relationship,” Dettloff wrote, arguing that even though “communist states and movements have indeed persecuted religious people at different moments in history,” Christians have been “passionately represented” in communist movements. “These Christians, like their atheist comrades, are communists not because they…Continue Reading

Is Trump Capturing The “Law And Order” Issue?

August 5, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Is Trump Capturing The “Law And Order” Issue?

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN Did President Donald Trump launch his Twitter barrage at Elijah Cummings simply because the Baltimore congressman was black? Was it just a “racist” attack on a member of the Black Caucus? Or did Trump go after Cummings after a Saturday, July 27 Fox News report that his district was in far worse condition than the Mexican border area for which Cummings had demagogically berated Border Patrol agents? Here are Trump’s crucial tweets: “Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the…Continue Reading