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Nine Things the GOP Congress Must Do

December 31, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Nine Things the GOP Congress Must Do

By TERENCE P. JEFFREY Donald Trump can be a great president. But for that to happen, two things must occur: He must follow through on key campaign commitments, and the Republican Congress must act on them. Here are nine commitments Trump made that the incoming Congress should make happen: 1. Completely repeal Obamacare. Trump’s position paper on health care said: “Our elected representatives in the House and Senate must: Completely repeal Obamacare. Our elected representatives must eliminate the individual mandate. No person should be required to buy insurance unless he or she wants to.” It further stated that reforms put in place after the repeal should “follow free market principles that will restore economic freedom and certainty to everyone in…Continue Reading

Self-Assurance And Certainty By ALICE von HILDEBRAND

December 30, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Self-Assurance And Certainty By ALICE von HILDEBRAND

My Dear Friend, Years ago, a non-Christian acquaintance visited my husband and me. He started talking about Christ, and as my husband — a born confessor — ardently testified to his belief in the Savior’s divinity, the other exploded: “You are so dreadfully self-assured.” This man’s remark drew my attention to another confusion rampant in our society, particularly in universities. Relativism has corroded our mentality to such an extent that any categorical assertion is immediately branded as a form of intellectual arrogance, that is, a tacit claim that one knows more and better than others. But, surprisingly enough, this criticism is only leveled at those who claim that God exists, that truth is objective, that moral values are absolutes, that…Continue Reading

Call Me Ishmael

December 29, 2016 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

ADF… Georgia College Sued For Censoring Student Speech

December 28, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on ADF… Georgia College Sued For Censoring Student Speech

ATLANTA — Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys on December 19, representing a student at Georgia Gwinnett College, filed suit in federal court to challenge the college’s speech policies. Those policies forbid any expression “which disturbs the peace and/or comfort of person(s)” and restrict speech to two tiny speech zones that make up less than 0.0015 percent of campus and are open only 18 hours per week. School officials used the policies to censor a student from speaking about his Christian faith. “The First Amendment guarantees every student’s freedom of speech and religion. Every public school — and especially a state college that is supposed to be the ‘marketplace of ideas’ — has the duty to protect and promote those freedoms,” said…Continue Reading

The Making Of The Modern Santa Claus

December 26, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on The Making Of The Modern Santa Claus

By RAY CAVANAUGH Long before the beloved icon of Santa Claus there was St. Nicholas, a fourth-century bishop in modern-day Turkey. Known for his generosity to the less fortunate, the original St. Nicholas reportedly tossed bags of gold through an open window and into the residence of a family too poor to provide dowries for their three daughters, who — thanks to St. Nick’s surreptitious charity — were saved from a likely fate of prostitution. The memory of St. Nicholas endured, and he became the patron saint of many things, including the nations of Greece and Russia. Even as far back as the Middle Ages, gifts were given in memory of Nicholas — typically on his feast day of December…Continue Reading

Before Midnight Mass

December 25, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Before Midnight Mass

By MARK AMOROSE Out of the black, a burst of aural light: the newborn carols that we, singing, pray deny it is the middle of the night, and in the dark we hear the break of day. Each song-starved tongue, each fasting ear, revives, prepared by Advent abstinence to feast: From voluntary limits on our lives, the manna of the music is released. And thus we hark, and herald angels sing the first noel — in dulci jubilo! We walk with Wenceslas the servant-king, following where the saint has marked the snow. And when the organ sounds the starting chord we are in David’s city with the Lord.

The Snowman

December 24, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on The Snowman

By DONALD DeMARCO The distinguished poet and literary critic, John Crowe Ransom, has stated that “the poet perpetuates in his poem an order of existence which in actual life is constantly crumbling beneath his touch.” My Christmas writing paper displays a smiling snowman surrounded by an extensive snowscape dotted with numerous evergreen trees. The contrast between the snowman and the trees is striking and brings to mind the theological notion that our mortality is linked to our immortality through hope. Even the prosaic can remind us of the association between our fragile nature and our eternal destiny. When children playfully build a snowman, they are lost in the moment, absorbed by the fun of it all. The poet, however, sees…Continue Reading

Georgia College Sued For Censoring Student Speech

December 23, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Georgia College Sued For Censoring Student Speech

ATLANTA — Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys on December 19, representing a student at Georgia Gwinnett College, filed suit in federal court to challenge the college’s speech policies. Those policies forbid any expression “which disturbs the peace and/or comfort of person(s)” and restrict speech to two tiny speech zones that make up less than 0.0015 percent of campus and are open only 18 hours per week. School officials used the policies to censor a student from speaking about his Christian faith. “The First Amendment guarantees every student’s freedom of speech and religion. Every public school — and especially a state college that is supposed to be the ‘marketplace of ideas’ — has the duty to protect and promote those freedoms,” said…Continue Reading

Catholic League Comments… FFRF Wants To Censor Christmas

December 23, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Catholic League Comments… FFRF Wants To Censor Christmas

NEW YORK — Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, on December 1 commented on the anti-Christmas efforts of the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF). Following is the text of his remarks: Secularists are not necessarily anti-Christmas, but the radicals in their ranks are. At the top of the list is FFRF. Its tactics are twofold: If religious Christmas symbols and events cannot be banned, secular symbols and events must compete with them. Consider the following. For many years, the northern Michigan town of Menominee has displayed a Nativity scene on public property. It was taken down this year after a complaint by FFRF. Chicago’s Daley Square has long been host to a life-size Nativity scene, and in recent years…Continue Reading

Pope Names New Bishop Of Dallas

December 22, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Pope Names New Bishop Of Dallas

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Pope Francis has named Bishop Edward Burns of Juneau, Alaska, as bishop of Dallas. The appointment was publicized in Washington, December 13, by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States. Bishop Burns was born October 7, 1957, in Pittsburgh. He earned a bachelor of arts degree from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, and holds a master of divinity degree and a master of arts degree in theology from Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Md. He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Pittsburgh in 1983 and ordained as a bishop in 2009, when Pope Benedict XVI appointed him as bishop of Juneau. During 2016, Bishop Burns has been a member of the U.S. Conference of…Continue Reading