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A National Conference On Sacred Music . . . Scheduled For March 2017 In Yonkers, N.Y.

January 9, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on A National Conference On Sacred Music . . . Scheduled For March 2017 In Yonkers, N.Y.

By JAMES MONTI In June of 1920 an international congress of Gregorian Chant was convened in New York, distinguished by the presence of the illustrious chant expert and founder of the Paleographie Musicale, Dom André Mocquereau. On day one of the 1920 conference, 3,500 Catholic school children sang in unison the chants of the Common for a votive solemn Mass celebrated by Archbishop Patrick Joseph Hayes. Nearly a century after this historic event, a national conference on sacred music, “Gregorian Chant in Pastoral Ministry and Religious Education,” will be held at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, N.Y., on March 10-11, 2017. The stated goals of the conference are to discern the role of the Church’s rich patrimony of sacred music…Continue Reading

More Catholics In New Congress

January 8, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on More Catholics In New Congress

By BILL DONOHUE (Editor’s Note: Bill Donohue is president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights [www.catholicleague.org]. Below he comments on the findings of a new Pew Research Survey, “Faith on the Hill,” that details the composition of the new Congress.) + + + When JFK was president, 19 percent of the Congress was Catholic; today it is 31 percent. During that period, Protestants declined from 75 percent to 56 percent. The most underrepresented segment of the population today is the “nones,” meaning those who are religiously unaffiliated: They constitute 23 percent of the public, but only .2 percent of the Congress. Looks like either the “nones” decline to run for office, or the public is not receptive…Continue Reading

The Titanic Has Set Sail

January 7, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on The Titanic Has Set Sail

By ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO Over the New Year’s weekend, President Barack Obama’s chief policy adviser and closest strategist, Valerie Jarrett, told a talk-show host that her boss would have a happy legacy because there was an absence of scandal in his administration. When first I heard this preposterous claim, I thought I had misheard it. Yet it is apparently true that President Obama and his team somehow can overlook recent history and behave as if events with which we are all familiar never happened. Here is the back story. When Obama became president in 2009 and enjoyed significant Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, he and his colleagues devoted themselves entirely to an issue nowhere in the Constitution —…Continue Reading

What Is The Best Proof For God’s Existence?

January 6, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on What Is The Best Proof For God’s Existence?

By DONALD DeMARCO On the day before Christmas (2016) I received an email from a person I do not know. His message consisted of a single sentence: “What do you believe is the greatest proof for God from Philosophy?” I was tempted to answer with a single word: “Providence.” Philosophically, this conforms to Aquinas’ fifth proof for God’s existence, the Argument from Design. However, since I was asked what I thought is the best proof, I decided to answer him by combining Aquinas’ argument from design with my own personal experiences of God’s Providence. The following examples strongly support the contention that God is providential and cooperates with us in our daily lives. And since God is with us, He…Continue Reading

Chief Justice Moore Receives 2016 Bill Of Rights Award

January 5, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Chief Justice Moore Receives 2016 Bill Of Rights Award

NEW HOLLAND, Pa. — Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore has been selected as the recipient of the 2016 Bill of Rights Award by the Bill of Rights Bicentennial Committee (BORBC) of Concordville, Pa. The award was announced on December 15, 2016, the 225th anniversary of the adoption of the Bill of Rights. The chairman of the BORBC Committee, Carris Kocher, said, “Judge Roy Moore’s courageous standing on the Tenth Amendment is what earned him the 2016 Bill of Rights Award. This is the constitutional ground on which Judge Roy Moore has standing in his actions as the chief justice of Alabama. It would be well for all of us to have a look at what rights ‘of the States’ and…Continue Reading

Culture Of Life 101… The Ethics Of Artificial Reproductive Technologies

January 4, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Culture Of Life 101… The Ethics Of Artificial Reproductive Technologies

By BRIAN CLOWES (Editor’s Note: Brian Clowes has been director of research and training at Human Life International since 1995. For an electronic copy of chapter 15 of The Facts of Life, “Assisted Reproductive Technologies,” e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.) + + + “The very probability that we may be faced with a human person in the full sense constitutes, in my opinion, an absolute veto against any type of [in vitro] experimentation” — Fr. Bernard Haring. + + + Introduction. Assisted reproduction is one of the most complex moral fields debated today. It is actually an aggregation of several distinct issues — the question of a “right” to a child, the high costs and high failure and complication rates of…Continue Reading

Justin Martyr: His Commentaries Remain Pertinent

January 3, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Justin Martyr: His Commentaries Remain Pertinent

By JUDE DOUGHERTY “Philosophy is one’s greatest possession, and is most precious in the sight of God to whom it alone leads us and to whom it unites us, and in truth they who have applied themselves to philosophy are holy men.” Those are the words of Justin Martyr, who lived from about AD 100 to 160. He goes on to say, “Man cannot have prudence without philosophy and straight thinking. Thus every man should be devoted to philosophy and should consider it the greatest and most noble pursuit. All other pursuits are only secondary and third unless connected to philosophy.” Justin was a pagan philosopher who, after a fascinating intellectual journey, converted to Christianity. Subsequent to his conversion he…Continue Reading

Call Me Ishmael

January 2, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on Call Me Ishmael

By DONALD DeMARCO The Ontario Human Rights Commission defines gender identity as “each person’s internal and individual experience of gender. It is their sense of being a woman, a man, both, neither, or anywhere along the gender spectrum.” The commission defines gender expression as “how a person publicly presents their [sic] gender,” which can include behavior and outward appearance such as dress, hair, make-up, body language, and voice, as well as a person’s name and the pronouns they use. The list of pronouns is extensive, including options such as “ze,” “zie,” “hir,” “xe,” “xem,” “zyr,” “e,” “ey,” “em,” and so on. How many genders exist along the “gender spectrum”? Individuals living in New York City can choose from a minimum of…Continue Reading

The Legacy Of The French Revolution . . . Rousseau’s General Will And The Reign Of Terror

January 2, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on The Legacy Of The French Revolution . . . Rousseau’s General Will And The Reign Of Terror

By ALBERTO PIEDRA (Dr. Piedra is an emeritus professor at the Institute of World Politics.) + + + Now at the initial stages of the twenty-first century it seems appropriate to consider without passion and with greater objectivity the revolutionary phenomenon that shook Europe in the eighteenth century. Under the banner of “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,” traditional systems of government and social institutions were challenged and threatened with extinction. The first and foremost example is the case of France and the violent overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty. It is time for a reassessment of such events as the takeover of the Bastille and France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man in August 1789. They have been glorified to such an…Continue Reading

A Book Review . . . The Handiwork Of A Creator, Artist, And Storyteller

January 1, 2017 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review . . . The Handiwork Of A Creator, Artist, And Storyteller

By MITCHELL KALPAKGIAN God Is In the Details, by William J. Casey, Ph.D. (W&S Publishing, Lewisville, NC, 2016), 156 pages. Available by calling 336-945-5384. A great work of art lifts the mind to a luminous vision of the whole, but also evokes wonder at the intricacy of the parts that order and create the harmony of unity and variety. As the whole abounds in the richness of its parts, the parts themselves radiate a splendor of their own as they add to the greater glory of the universal. This book contemplates the perfect design of the Holy Bible, God’s great masterpiece, written by its inspired writers under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It gives special attention to the smallest…Continue Reading