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Memorial Mass Held In U.S. For Victims Of Islamic State

December 3, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Memorial Mass Held In U.S. For Victims Of Islamic State

WASHINGTON, D.C. (CNA/EWTN News) — In observance of a week promoting awareness of Christians persecuted internationally, the Chaldean archbishop of Erbil offered a Mass in Washington, D.C., for victims of the Islamic State. He stated that suffering offers opportunities for kindness. “Is there a blessing in being persecuted for the faith?” Archbishop Bashar Warda asked November 28. “The grace of being persecuted: God shows His love and care through the solidarity being shown by those outside. Also, the suffering gives a chance to people of goodwill to show their love.” Organized by Catholic agencies, including Knights of Columbus and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Mass was held at the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, D.C.…Continue Reading

The Forgotten Pope

December 2, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on The Forgotten Pope

By ALBERTO PIEDRA (Dr. Piedra is a professor emeritus at The Institute of World Politics.) + + + “Optimism is obligatory, but it’s cheap. In the current situation, there is a heavy price to pay. Relativism has wreaked havoc, and it continues to act as a mirror and an echo chamber for the dark mood that has fallen over the West. It has paralyzed the West, when it is already disoriented and at a standstill, rendered it defenseless when it is already acquiescent, and confused it when it is already reluctant to rise to the challenge” (from Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam by Pope Benedict XVI and Marcello Pera, 2006). It is to be hoped that future generations…Continue Reading

Across Ireland… Catholics Pray Rosary To Strengthen Pro-Life Cause

December 1, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Across Ireland… Catholics Pray Rosary To Strengthen Pro-Life Cause

DUBLIN (CNA/EWTN News) — Hundreds of groups of Catholics gathered across the island of Ireland on Sunday, November 26 to pray the rosary for the preservation of the Catholic faith and for the defense of life against the threat of abortion. “Firstly, we thank Christ our King, and the Most Immaculate Heart of Mary, Queen of Ireland for all the graces and blessings,” Rosary on the Coast for Life and Faith organizers said on the group’s Facebook page November 27. “From the bottom of our hearts we humbly thank everyone who organized one of the 300 plus locations around the coastlines of our beautiful country.” They added: “We are incredibly grateful to each and every one of you that braved…Continue Reading

Pope In Burma… Peace Requires Justice, Respect For Human Rights

November 30, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Pope In Burma… Peace Requires Justice, Respect For Human Rights

By ELISE HARRIS YANGON, Burma (CNA/EWTN News) — In a major speech in Burma, Pope Francis told the nation’s leaders to leave conflict behind and work for peace by promoting justice and respect for the rights of all citizens, regardless of religion or ethnicity. “The arduous process of peace-building and national reconciliation can only advance through a commitment to justice and respect for human rights,” the Pope told Burmese civil authorities November 28. Speaking from the capital of Yangon on the first full day of a six-day visit to Burma and Bangladesh, Francis noted how justice is historically understood as “a steadfast will to give each person his due,” and is often viewed as “the basis of all true and…Continue Reading

A Book Review . . . Unity Of Friendship, Charity, And Family

November 29, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review . . . Unity Of Friendship, Charity, And Family

By MITCHELL KALPAKGIAN Go to Heaven: A Spiritual Roadmap to Eternity by Fulton J. Sheen (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 2017), 250 pp.; $16.95. Available at www.ignatius.com or call 1-800-651-1531. A reprint of a book first published in 1949, this masterpiece, like any great spiritual classic, provides riches for the mind as it elucidates the timeless teachings of the Church, serves as an eloquent apologia for the many doctrines of the Catholic faith, offers the best catechesis for adults inspired to enter the one true Church, and makes Christianity a living religion abounding in wisdom, love, and joy. No matter how much a person knows or loves his faith, he will gain greater depth of comprehension and deeper appreciation for the…Continue Reading

A Book Review… The Moral Logic That Joins Christianity With Civil Liberty

November 28, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review… The Moral Logic That Joins Christianity With Civil Liberty

By JUDE DOUGHERTY Siedentop, Larry. Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 2017. 448 pp. In the opening pages of this book, historian Larry Siedentop, Emeritus Fellow of Keble College Oxford, asks, does it make sense to talk about the West? “People who live in the nations once described as part of Christendom — what many would call the post-Christian world — seem to have lost their bearings. Some may welcome this condition, seeing it as liberation from historical myths such as the biblical story of human sin and redemption or a belief in progress ‘guaranteed’ by developments in science.” Siedentop is convinced that, like it or not, we are in a period of…Continue Reading

Biblical Conference… Hears How God Brought Salvation By Stepping Into Earthly “Ordinariness”

November 27, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Biblical Conference… Hears How God Brought Salvation By Stepping Into Earthly “Ordinariness”

By DEXTER DUGGAN PHOENIX — The everyday “ordinariness” of God’s miraculous presence among His people can be “a stumbling block” today, just as it was in Jesus’ own time on Earth when fellow villagers doubted the special status of a carpenter’s son, a theology professor told the second annual Southwest Biblical Conference here. “God became flesh, and has a belly button,” said Dr. James Pauley, professor of theology and catechetics at Franciscan University of Steubenville, during the program lasting nearly four and a half hours on November 18 at St. Thomas the Apostle Church. The day began with an 8:30 a.m. Mass offered by the bishop of Gallup, N.M., James S. Wall, who had been the pastor at St. Thomas…Continue Reading

Stanley Hauerwas And Luther’s Legacy

November 26, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Stanley Hauerwas And Luther’s Legacy

By JUDE P. DOUGHERTY The Washington Post devoted most of its Sunday, October 29 “Outlook” section to the legacy of Martin Luther. Stanley Hauerwas, among the six who contributed, provided an essay entitled, “What Is the Point of Protestantism?” He pays tribute to an early teacher who introduced him to Jesuit Fr. Frederick Copleston’s multivolume History of Philosophy. Copleston provided an eye-opening experience, and Hauerwas wanted more. From Southwestern University in Texas, he began graduate work at Yale’s Divinity School, to study theology but not with ordination in mind. “We students read Catholic theologians — Rahner, Haring, de Lubac, and Congar. We also read Martin Luther and John Calvin, but we considered them to be late Medieval thinkers who had more…Continue Reading

The King Of Glory, Mighty In Battle

November 25, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on The King Of Glory, Mighty In Battle

By JAMES MONTI For centuries, in the sacred liturgy, late November has been a time for anticipating the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ. In times of great trial for the Church — and our present age is just such a time — this anticipation of Christ’s return in glory is heightened by the Church’s anxious yearning to be rescued and delivered from evil by her Divine Bridegroom. In the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, the Gospel for the final Sunday of the year is Matt. 24:15-35, our Lord’s account of the fearsome events that are to come at the end of the world, and on the following Sunday, the First Sunday of Advent, which…Continue Reading

Citizen Of The Year?

November 24, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Citizen Of The Year?

By DONALD DeMARCO The story surrounding Colin Kaepernick, the National Football League quarterback who defied tradition by refusing to stand during the national anthem, will not go away. In fact, it seems to be gaining steam. The controversial former Forty-Niner QB now graces the December cover of GQ magazine as the “Citizen of the Year.” The choice of a person who once wore socks depicting the police as pigs and has elicited the ire of both the president and vice-president of the United States has, predictably, met with various opinions ranging from praise to condemnation. Perhaps a more deserving selection would have been J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans who raised $37 million for victims of Hurricane Harvey. But such…Continue Reading