Friday 13th December 2019

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Buffalo’s Bishop Richard Malone Resigns After Year Of Scandal

December 12, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Buffalo’s Bishop Richard Malone Resigns After Year Of Scandal

VATICAN CITY (CNA) — Pope Francis on December 4 accepted the resignation of Buffalo’s embattled Bishop Richard Malone. The Diocese of Buffalo will be administered by Albany’s Bishop Edward Scharfenberger until a permanent replacement for Malone is appointed. A December 4 communiqué from the U.S. apostolic nunciature said Malone asked Pope Francis for an “early retirement” during last month’s ad limina visit, after being made aware of the results of an apostolic visitation to the Diocese of Buffalo, which concluded at the end of October. In his own statement December 4, Malone said the results of the apostolic visitation were a factor in his decision to resign, but he is doing so “freely and voluntarily.” “I have concluded after much…Continue Reading

Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic… Political Correctness And The War On Thanksgiving

December 11, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic… Political Correctness And The War On Thanksgiving

  By STEPHEN M. KRASON (Editor’s Note: Stephen M. Krason’s Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic column appears monthly, sometimes bimonthly. 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 Thanksgiving holiday this year provided a striking…Continue Reading

In Hong Kong, It’s The United States Vs. China Now

December 10, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on In Hong Kong, It’s The United States Vs. China Now

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN At first glance, it would appear that five months of pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong had produced a stunning triumph. By September, the proposal of city leader Carrie Lam that ignited the protests — to allow criminal suspects to be extradited to China for trial — had been withdrawn. And though the protesters’ demands escalated along with their tactics, from marches to mass civil disobedience, Molotov cocktails, riots, and attacks on police, Chinese troops remained confined to their barracks. Beijing wanted no reenactment of Tiananmen Square, the midnight massacre in the heart of Beijing that drowned in blood the 1989 uprising for democratic rights. In Hong Kong, the police have not used lethal force. In five…Continue Reading

Duluth’s Bishop Paul Sirba Dies Unexpectedly At 59

December 9, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Duluth’s Bishop Paul Sirba Dies Unexpectedly At 59

By CHRISTINE ROUSSELLE DULUTH, Minn. (CNA) — Bishop Paul Sirba of the Diocese of Duluth, Minn., died on Sunday, December 1 after suffering a heart attack before offering Mass. He was 59 years old. “It is with an incredibly heavy heart that I must inform you of tragic news regarding our Bishop,” said a December 1 statement from Fr. James B. Bissonette, who had been the diocesan vicar general until the bishop’s death. The office of the vicar general ceases upon the death of the diocesan bishop. “Words do not adequately express our sorrow at this sudden loss of our Shepherd,” Bissonette said. Bissonette’s statement was distributed to clergy throughout the diocese and was read after Masses on that Sunday.…Continue Reading

Holy See UN Mission . . . Cosponsors Symposium Of The Persecuted

December 8, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Holy See UN Mission . . . Cosponsors Symposium Of The Persecuted

By JOHN J. METZLER UNITED NATIONS — The stunning silence of the mainstream media which often overlooks ongoing anti-religious violence has become a sad barometer of our secular societies. Clearly, while most of the attacks are “somewhere else,” be it the Middle East, Africa, or South Asia, the media template seems preset to default to cover other issues. The Holy See Observer Mission to the UN and Aid to the Church in Need cosponsored a November 20 symposium here, allowing the voices of the persecuted to be heard: survivors who have personally witnessed recent carnages in Sri Lanka and the Philippines. According to Aid to the Church in Need report, Persecuted and Forgotten?: “One out of seven Christians lives in…Continue Reading

As The Feast Approaches… Remember That Christmas Links Us To Eternity

December 7, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on As The Feast Approaches… Remember That Christmas Links Us To Eternity

By DEACON ANTHONY BARRASSO (Editor’s Note: Deacon Barrasso serves in a Maryland parish.) + + + Christmas Day divides the time frame of our lives into BC, “before Christ’s coming,” and AD, “Anno Domini,” the years that have passed after His birth. Christmas reminds us of our beginnings, our father, our mother, our children, and lights and trees and gifts. We have memories that immerse us into the mystery of our own lives which did not begin with a man or woman or a serpent in a garden. In a time before time, you and I were conceived in an eternal thought of the one God who is eternal. Before the sun knew the time for its setting, before the…Continue Reading

Antinatalism And The Culture Of Death

December 6, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Antinatalism And The Culture Of Death

By FR. SHENAN J. BOQUET (Editor’s Note: Fr. Shenan Boquet is president of Human Life International. Fr. Boquet’s commentary below first appeared at HLI.org on November 25 and is reprinted here with permission. All rights reserved.) + + + In chapter one of the first book of the Bible, we find a remarkable, even revolutionary statement — indeed, a series of such statements. At the end of each day, after God has put the finishing touches on one more part of His creation, He pauses to survey His handiwork. And, the Bible says each time, “He saw that it was good.” The water and dry land are “good.” The stars and the sun and the moon are “good.” The birds…Continue Reading

A Book Review… Why The Crusades Failed

December 5, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review… Why The Crusades Failed

By JAMES BARESEL The Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades by Roger Crowley (Basic Books: 2019), available at amazon.com in various formats. Approximately 300 pages. Faithful Catholic minds are naturally inclined to defend the Crusades, both because the principles behind them were quite simply the principles of Christ’s Church and because criticisms of them tend to be based in various errors of principle or of fact — pacifism, disregard for Church teaching, failure or refusal to recognize the aggressive and violent tradition of Islam, practical or theoretical religious indifferentism, the supposition that Christians were the aggressors rather than responding to Muslims’ military advances in the Mediterranean world. It does no good, however, to get…Continue Reading

The Poster Boy For Biased Federal Judges

December 4, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on The Poster Boy For Biased Federal Judges

By BARBARA SIMPSON (Editor’s Note: This article first appeared November 22 on World Net Daily [www.wnd.com] and is reprinted here with permission. All rights reserved. Barbara Simpson has a 20-year radio, TV, and newspaper career in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. (See also the related article on the Simpson trial on p. 1A of this week’s issue.) + + + As I watch the news of what is transpiring in this country, I find it hard to continue believing that we have an honest system of justice under which good and truth ultimately will prevail — whether we’re talking about politics and the travails of President Trump against his political enemies, or federal trials held across the country that…Continue Reading

A Book Review . . . What Is The Good To Which We Are Ordained By Nature?

December 3, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review . . . What Is The Good To Which We Are Ordained By Nature?

By JUDE DOUGHERTY Berquist, Richard. From Human Dignity to Natural Law: An Introduction, Washington, D.C. (The Catholic University of America Press: 2019). Pp. Xvi + 242. Conversant with contemporary literature in the field of ethics, Richard Berquist has chosen to avoid professional disputes in favor of a commonsense treatment of his subject. Drawing upon his long experience in the classroom, he offers what must be called a refreshing approach to his subject matter, a method that is well worth emulating. Dr. Berquist is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. He is the author of A Commentary on the Posterior Analytics of St. Thomas. After a brief period of teaching at St. John’s University,…Continue Reading