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Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic . . . Beyond Abortion: Further Down The Path Of Legitimizing Killing The Innocent

March 15, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic . . . Beyond Abortion: Further Down The Path Of Legitimizing Killing The Innocent

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 a 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; 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.) + + + Many commentators have perceived that the New York State law that legalizes infanticide when a child has survived a…Continue Reading

Cardinal Pell’s Appeal Process To Begin In June

March 14, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Cardinal Pell’s Appeal Process To Begin In June

MELBOURNE, Australia (CNA) — An Australian court announced March 5 that George Cardinal Pell’s application for leave to appeal his conviction of sexual abuse will be heard June 5-6. Pell, 77, was convicted in December on five counts of sexual abuse stemming from charges that he sexually assaulted two choirboys while serving as archbishop of Melbourne in 1996. He has maintained his innocence. It was the cardinal’s second trial, as a jury in an earlier trial had failed to reach a unanimous verdict. The first jury was deadlocked 10-2 in Pell’s favor. (See John Young’s article on Cardinal Pell’s conviction on page one of last week’s issue, March 7, 2019.) Pell’s appeal will be led by barrister Bret Walker, SC,…Continue Reading

Trump-Kim Summit… The Second Act In Hanoi

March 13, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Trump-Kim Summit… The Second Act In Hanoi

By JOHN J. METZLER UNITED NATIONS — “Sometimes you have to walk,” was President Donald Trump’s stunning conclusion to the U.S./North Korea Summit in Hanoi, where political great expectations seemed to get ahead of the hard reality that Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program created an impasse to an expected diplomatic agreement between the two rival states. The setting was as important as the agenda: the president of the United States meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the capital city of one of America’s principal Cold War antagonists, Hanoi. But more than forty years after the fall of South Vietnam to the North Vietnamese Communists, a unified Vietnam has at long last emerged as a booming economic success story, which…Continue Reading

Vatican To Open World War II Secret Archives Of Pope Pius XII

March 12, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Vatican To Open World War II Secret Archives Of Pope Pius XII

By COURTNEY GROGAN VATICAN CITY (CNA) — Pope Francis announced March 3 that the Vatican will open its archives on the pontificate of Pope Pius XII. Confidential files of the Pope who led the Church during World War II will be made available next year. “Serious and objective historical research” will be able to evaluate Pius XII’s “hidden but active diplomacy . . . in its proper light,” Pope Francis said March 4. The Pope said that the full confidential files, called a “secret archive,” will be released March 2, 2020. The pontificate of Pius XII has been often misunderstood. Critics have accused him of indifference to the plight of the Jewish people during the Second World War, despite several…Continue Reading

A Thief’s Redemption

March 11, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on A Thief’s Redemption

By RAY CAVANAUGH Crucified alongside Jesus, he is known as the Penitent Thief, who asked Jesus to remember him upon reaching Heaven. Jesus responded by telling him, “I say to you today you will be with me in Paradise.” Later given the name “Dismas,” he is the patron saint of prisoners, particularly those condemned to death. He has also served as a subject for artists and has inspired organizations that seek to assist persons who live on the fringes of society — or have been removed from society altogether. March 25 is his feast day. According to the Arabic Infancy Gospel, Dismas had robbed Jesus’ family when Jesus was a baby, only to be reunited with Him at the scene…Continue Reading

Is The American Century Over For Good?

March 10, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Is The American Century Over For Good?

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN “Politics stops at the water’s edge” was a tradition that, not so long ago, was observed by both parties, particularly when a president was abroad, speaking for the nation. The tradition was enunciated by Sen. Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan in 1947, as many of the Republicans in the 80th Congress moved to back Truman’s leadership in the Cold War against Stalin’s empire. The tradition lasted until the mid-1960s, when the left-wing of the Democratic Party turned viscerally, and even violently, against the war in Vietnam and President Lyndon Johnson. Republican Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and Bush I, with the support of conservative Democrats, led America to final victory in the Cold War Yet except for brief intervals,…Continue Reading

Clericalism Isn’t The Enemy; Faithless Clerics Are

March 9, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Clericalism Isn’t The Enemy; Faithless Clerics Are

By SHAUN KENNEY Mr. H writes about the impact of “ritual Catholicism” on America and Ireland. It’s a topic that we have touched on before at First Teachers on the impact of Jansenism (all rules and ritual with a tendency towards clericalism — don’t roll your eyes just yet) on Anglo-Irish Catholicism, particularly in places such as Australia, Ireland, England, and in the United States. For Catholics in America, clericalism wasn’t a dirty word, but a survival mechanism. The church in the modern age was the antipode to the state at a time when revolutions and totalitarians lusted after both the souls and the arms of those sent to die in distant fields: Flanders, Sedan, the Somme, Stalingrad, and Kursk.…Continue Reading

“Unplanned” Movie Gets Unexpected R Rating

March 8, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on “Unplanned” Movie Gets Unexpected R Rating

By CHRISTINE ROUSSELLE WASHINGTON, D.C. (CNA) — The movie Unplanned, which tells the true story of former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson’s conversion into a pro-life activist, has been given an R rating by the Motion Picture Association of America, a decision the directors fear could have been motivated by the pro-life message of the film. The rating was announced Friday, February 22. “We had hoped that (the rating) would be different, but due to the political climate, and the fact that we’re in Hollywood, it doesn’t surprise us,” co-director Chuck Konzelman told Catholic News Agency. Co-director Cary Solomon agreed, adding that “we’ve made a pro-life film in a pro-choice town. We’re very aware of that.” By giving the…Continue Reading

A Potpourri… The Order Of Creation, Student Loans, And Free Markets

March 7, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on A Potpourri… The Order Of Creation, Student Loans, And Free Markets

By GEORGE A. KENDALL Since the beginning of the so-called Enlightenment, skeptics have questioned whether it is possible for the human mind to know realities outside itself, and have produced elaborate systems to take a mind which they believe to be naturally disconnected from reality and somehow connect it to reality. This assumes as given the disconnectedness. What is wrong with this picture? What is wrong is that it uses this questionable assumption about the rift, the lack of connection, between the mind and reality, as the starting point. What it should start with is not the mind, taken in isolation from everything else, but the Creation, which is the whole context in which the mind is and acts. Now…Continue Reading

Ambassador Brownback… Says Pakistan Willing To Improve Religious Freedom Record

March 6, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Ambassador Brownback… Says Pakistan Willing To Improve Religious Freedom Record

WASHINGTON, D.C. (CNA) — The U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom has applauded Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates for showing a willingness to improve in the area of religious liberty, while recognizing that significant steps forward are still needed. Ambassador Sam Brownback told the Associated Press that he met with Pakistan’s foreign minister on a tour of the Middle East recently, discussing U.S. concerns about religious freedom in the nation. “They’ve had a lot of difficulties as a nation on this topic on religious freedom so what I was there for was to talk about changing,” Brownback said. He said the foreign minister intends to designate an official to take the lead on the concerns raised by…Continue Reading