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Lawsuit Contests Taxpayer-Funded Illinois Abortion Law

December 13, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Lawsuit Contests Taxpayer-Funded Illinois Abortion Law

By MAGGIE MASLAK SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (CNA/EWTN News) — A new Illinois law requiring public funding of elective abortions is opposed by pro-life groups and taxpayers who have sued the state, calling the measure illegal. “The people of Illinois totally reject taxpayer-funded abortions,” said Peter Breen, special counsel for the Thomas More Society, a nonprofit legal group in Chicago, in a statement released November 30. “Even apart from the sincere moral objections that many folks have to paying for abortions, there is no money in this year’s Illinois state budget to pay for them,” Breen continued. House Bill 40 was signed into law by Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner in late September. Blase Cardinal Cupich of Chicago criticized the governor, saying that…Continue Reading

Advent With The English Martyrs

December 12, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Advent With The English Martyrs

By JAMES MONTI Recently I learned from an English Catholic gentleman that in late October the BBC began airing in England a new television series called Gunpowder dramatizing the historical events surrounding the “Gunpowder Plot” of 1605, a violent plot of a few Catholic extremists arising from the desperate situation of Catholics persecuted under England’s monarchy. Although it is not yet clear whether this series will ever be shown on U.S. television, accounts of it sound encouraging — that it depicts with unsparing honesty the brutal persecution to which English Catholics were subjected by the country’s Protestant regime. If this is indeed the case, then the airing of this dramatization would serve as a needed and timely reality check to…Continue Reading

Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic. . . The Supreme Court’s Overturning Of Bad Precedents: Don’t Hold Your Breath

December 11, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic. . . The Supreme Court’s Overturning Of Bad Precedents: Don’t Hold Your Breath

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. Among his books are: Abortion: Politics, Morality, and the Constitution; The Transformation of the American Democratic Republic; Catholicism and American Political Ideologies, and a novel about a president who uses power in the way suggested in this column, American Cincinnatus.) + + + In his recent book, Nixon’s White House Wars, Patrick J. Buchanan writes about how most of Richard Nixon’s…Continue Reading

Lead Us Not Into Temptation

December 10, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Lead Us Not Into Temptation

By DONALD DeMARCO “I can resist anything but temptation,” quipped Oscar Wilde. His remark is really more humorous than cynical. But it does underscore a truth, namely, that there is some measure of difficulty for all of us in resisting temptation. Even the saints had to wrestle with temptation. “I am delighted with the law of God according to the inward man,” writes St. Paul, “but I see another law in my members fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin that is in my members” (Romans 7:15). Temptation is an ever-present problem. “Opportunity knocks but once,” as a pundit once remarked, “but temptation leans on the doorbell.” In this case, the exaggeration…Continue Reading

Our Lady Of Fatima… Apostle Of The Immaculate Heart: The Life Of Lucia Dos Santos

December 9, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Our Lady Of Fatima… Apostle Of The Immaculate Heart: The Life Of Lucia Dos Santos

By FR. SEAN CONNOLLY (Editor’s Note: This is the eleventh in a series of articles on the one hundredth anniversary of our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima. Fr. Connolly is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York. Part eleven, because of its length, will appear in two separate issues of The Wanderer.) + + + So far in this series of articles published in commemoration of the centenary of our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima, we have reviewed the historical context of the Fatima event, the three apparitions of the Angel of Peace, the six apparitions of the Mother of God, and the lives of Saints Francisco and Jacinta. We will now review the life of the eldest of the three…Continue Reading

Tampa Change-Counseling Ban Faces Legal Challenge

December 8, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Tampa Change-Counseling Ban Faces Legal Challenge

TAMPA, Fla. — Liberty Counsel filed suit in federal court against the city of Tampa for its adoption of Ordinance 2017-47, which prohibits licensed counselors from providing and clients from receiving counseling to reduce or eliminate their unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, or identity. The ordinance imposes significant monetary fines on counselors who provide such counseling. Liberty Counsel represents Robert Vazzo, LMFT, David Pickup, LMFT, and their minor clients and their parents. These counselors provide life-saving counsel to minors and their parents or legal guardians who want to conform their unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, and identity to their religious beliefs or conscience. The sacred trust between counselors and clients establishes a unique relationship that permits the clients to inform the counselors…Continue Reading

At Supreme Court… Baker Argues For Cake And Conscience

December 7, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on At Supreme Court… Baker Argues For Cake And Conscience

By ADDIE MENA WASHINGTON, D.C. (CNA/EWTN News) — A Colorado baker’s right to express himself through artwork — edible artwork — lies at the center of the December 5 Supreme Court arguments, say lawyers for Masterpiece Cakeshop owner, Jack Phillips. “The right of all creative professionals to speak and to live consistent with their beliefs is at stake,” Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Kristen Waggoner, who represented Phillips before the Supreme Court, told Catholic News Agency. The court heard arguments December 5 in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, a case which has garnered attention from LGBT advocates and religious liberty proponents. Waggoner said that the justices asked difficult questions of both sides, and explained that she and U.S.…Continue Reading

Catholic Missionaries In Burma Find Life Difficult

December 6, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Catholic Missionaries In Burma Find Life Difficult

YANGON, Burma (ACI Prensa) — When Pope Francis visited Burma — also known as Myanmar — in late November, he encountered a country where life for Catholics can be challenging. Just 1.3 percent of the population in Burma is Catholic, and while freedom of religion exists on paper, evangelizing in the majority Buddhist country meets with obstacles. In an interview published by the Pontifical Missionary Works, a Spanish missionary who has been in Burma for seven years described life in the country. He spoke anonymously, to avoid jeopardizing his mission. “The presence of foreign missionaries is not allowed. They’re afraid you’ll proselytize,” he said. “In fact, the brothers from native Burmese communities, even though they are recognized as such, officially…Continue Reading

The Fourth Commandment And The Next Holocaust

December 5, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on The Fourth Commandment And The Next Holocaust

By GEORGE A. KENDALL The Fourth Commandment is central to the order of every society, because the continuity of life from generation to generation is central — how younger generations deal with older ones, how the young treat the old, is crucial. I like to think of the Fourth Commandment as the binding of the book which is the Decalogue. The first three Commandments have to do with our relationship with God; the last six with our relationship to our neighbor. The fourth ties together piety toward God with piety toward our past, toward our origins, which binds together the social order in all of time, including the present, and hence concerns our relationship to our neighbor. If we don’t…Continue Reading

McCain Adapts To Conservative Son-In-Law… But Is A New Conservative Senator Too Much To Ask?

December 4, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on McCain Adapts To Conservative Son-In-Law… But Is A New Conservative Senator Too Much To Ask?

By DEXTER DUGGAN PHOENIX — Unless he’s running for re-election, U.S. Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) usually doesn’t have much favorable to say about conservatives, but he “crossed the aisle” of partisanship to pay tribute to 35-year-old conservative commentator Ben Domenech as “a very fine man” in October. It probably helped that Domenech was going to be doing a little aisle time himself the following month when he was to marry McCain’s 33-year-old daughter, Meghan, at the McCain ranch in northern Arizona. Even if McCain deeply disliked Domenech, whose The Federalist website is heavy on conservative commentary, the senator probably wouldn’t have had much fight in himself to oppose the strong nuptial wishes of his independent-minded offspring. And was McCain…Continue Reading