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The Roots Of Division

November 21, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on The Roots Of Division

By DONALD DeMARCO In every post-election period, so it seems, the cry goes out to overcome divisions and unify the country. Divisions, it is said, block the way to progress and prevent America from achieving its true greatness. Unity is what we all Americans desire and they can attain that blessed condition simply by doing away with divisions. But politics is incapable of solving divisions. It is far more adept, as history shows, at creating them. A fundamental error is the belief that divisions are bad because they produce conflict. That is only partly true. But it is more accurate to say that conflict precedes divisions and that it is conflict that produces divisions. We should spend our energy, therefore,…Continue Reading

Te Deum

November 20, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Te Deum

By JUDE DOUGHERTY There are times when nothing less than a Te Deum is called for, nothing less than a Te Deum to express joy or gratitude. This has been recognized by the Church and Christian monarchs through history. It came to be used not only in the liturgy but at coronations, victories, and sometimes even when the king entered a city. The origin of the Te Deum remains obscure. EWTN, in providing an English translation of the ancient text of the hymn, tells us that it has sometimes been called the “Ambrosian Hymn” because of its association with St. Ambrose, but it has also been attributed to St. Augustine and St. Hilary. Multiple sources now accredit it to Nicetas,…Continue Reading

Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic . . . What’s Wrong With Guaranteeing A Free College Education?

November 19, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic . . . What’s Wrong With Guaranteeing A Free College Education?

By STEPHEN M. KRASON (Editor’s Note: Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” column appears monthly [sometimes bi-monthly] in Crisis. 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 is The Transformation of the American Democratic Republic, and two recent edited volumes: The Crisis of Religious Liberty and Challenging the Secular Culture: A Call to Christians. He just completed a book that critically examines and evaluates current American liberalism and conservatism in light of Catholic social teaching.) + + + Bernie Sanders failed in his…Continue Reading

A Book Review . . . Immigration Policy By Ruling-Class Dilettantes

November 18, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review . . . Immigration Policy By Ruling-Class Dilettantes

By JUDE DOUGHERTY Miller, David. Strangers in Our Midst: The Political Philosophy of Immigration. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2016; 218 pp. This is a timely book, to say the least. David Miller is a professor of political theory at Nuffield College, Oxford. He speaks as a European, but what he has to say applies analogously to North America. He is thoroughly conversant with current academic literature on the subject of immigration, although much of it seems specious or sophistical. Consequentially, he is led to deal with many questions that defy common sense. Does everybody have a human right to migrate, that is, to enter another country? What can be asked of immigrants, legal or not, once they arrive? Should…Continue Reading

The Middle East At The Crossroads Of History

November 17, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on The Middle East At The Crossroads Of History

By ALBERTO MARTINEZ PIEDRA “Qu’importe si cent mille coups de fusil partent en Afrique! L’Europene les entend pas” — Louis Philippe, 1835. Louis Philippe d’ Orleans was probably right when he said that the European nations closed their eyes to the demands of the African people. Their lives were dictated by the foreign offices of London, Paris, and St. Petersburg, not to mention Berlin prior to World War I. For better or for worse, the destinies of the Middle East have been intertwined with the major European powers. As George Lenczowski, the late professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in his book The Middle East in World Affairs: “The importance of this region in world…Continue Reading

Culture Of Life 101 . . . “What May We Do About Pain?”

November 16, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Culture Of Life 101 . . . “What May We Do About Pain?”

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 23 of The Facts of Life, “Euthanasia,” e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.) + + + As we get older and begin to consider our own advance medical directives, we should also think about the question of pain and how we intend to deal with it. Those who diligently practice their Catholic faith commonly ask three questions regarding the use of painkilling drugs near the end of life: May they be used if they unintentionally shorten the life of the person? May they be used if they induce semi-consciousness? May they be used if they induce…Continue Reading

A Book Review . . . Raising Boys With Heroic Virtues In An Age That Venerates Vice

November 15, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review . . . Raising Boys With Heroic Virtues In An Age That Venerates Vice

By DEXTER DUGGAN Raising Chaste Catholic Men: Practical Advice, Mom to Mom, by Leila Miller, LCB Publishing, Phoenix, Ariz., ISBN 978-0-9979893-0-4, 142 pages paperback, $11.95, 2016, raisingchastecatholicmen@gmail.com. Raising children always has been a challenge of filling in the blanks. Innocent little ones may ask many questions without grasping how much they truly need to learn. And their new souls quickly become a target of the Devil’s designs. Look no further than the Bible for ages-old stories of young people gone astray, then, one hopes, redeemed through God’s grace. Instilling moral wisdom was a demanding task when social rules stayed the same for generations or centuries. How much harder today, when aggressive secularism overthrows millennia of truth in a generation. Author…Continue Reading

The Difficulty With Diversity

November 14, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on The Difficulty With Diversity

By DONALD DeMARCO A friend and I were enjoying a recreational break by shooting baskets. The fact that we were not keeping score allowed us to engage in a friendly conversation. My friend decided to pick my allegedly philosophical brain and asked me a question that he had trouble answering. He explained that a “diversity expert” had lectured him and all his co-workers that they must all embrace diversity. My friend was uncomfortable about this, but could not put his finger on exactly why he felt this way. This sweet-sounding word to our culturally conditioned ears, unfortunately, has become an axiom, and therefore something that cannot be questioned. Let us question it, nonetheless. I tossed up another shot while it…Continue Reading

Pro-Life Christians For Hillary

November 13, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Pro-Life Christians For Hillary

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK An article appeared in The Dallas News in the week before the presidential election entitled “How you can be a pro-life Christian and still support Hillary Clinton.” The author is Jenifer Sarver, a businesswoman from Austin who heads a communications consulting firm that specializes, according to its website, in “media relations, crisis communications, speechwriting, coalition building, and media and presentation skills training.” Sarver begins by assuring us that if “Donald Trump were not at the top of the Republican ticket, I would proudly support any number of” the Republicans who ran against him in the primary. No question; Trump’s character was a deal-breaker for many women. But the logic Sarver used to justify her vote for Trump goes…Continue Reading

Catholic Knighthood: Then And Now

November 12, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Catholic Knighthood: Then And Now

By JAMES MONTI In the Divine Office of both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite, there is on the feast day of the early Roman virgin martyr St. Cecilia (November 22) a remarkable antiphon traceable to a late fifth-century account of her martyrdom, a chant which has been sung in her office since the ninth century: “When daybreak came, Cecilia cried out saying, ‘Make haste, O soldiers of Christ, cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light’” (Benedictus antiphon, Breviarium Romanum, Rome, 1568, p. 905). The “soldiers of Christ” to whom Cecilia is referring are her husband St. Valerian and his brother St. Tiburtius. Both men had been converted to the Christian…Continue Reading