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Last Chance For The “Deplorables”

September 22, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Last Chance For The “Deplorables”

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN Speaking to 1,000 of the overprivileged at an LGBT fundraiser, where the chairs ponied up $250,000 each and Barbra Streisand sang, Hillary Clinton gave New York’s social liberals what they came to hear. “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” smirked Clinton to cheers and laughter. “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.” They are “irredeemable,” but they are “not America.” This was no verbal slip. Clinton had invited the press in to cover the LGBT gala at Cipriani Wall Street where the cheap seats went for $1,200. And she had tried out her new lines earlier on Israeli TV: “You can take Trump supporters…Continue Reading

A Book Review… The Limitless Wisdom Of The Parables

September 21, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review… The Limitless Wisdom Of The Parables

By MITCHELL KALPAKGIAN Hints of Heaven: The Parables of Christ and What They Mean for You, by Fr. George Rutler (Sophia Institute Press: Manchester, NH, 2014), 151 pp.; $14.95. Available through www.SophiaInstitute.com or 1-800-888-9344. A collection of short meditations on the 24 parables that appear in the Gospel, this book relates these stories to the moral laws of the Catholic faith and to two central themes in Christ’s teaching: the nature of the universal Church He founded and the Kingdom of Heaven He has prepared for all who follow His teaching and enter His one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church. Familiar as the parables are, their wisdom — God’s word — has no limit and always allows for new, fresh…Continue Reading

A Book Review… The Cost Of Assimilation

September 20, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review… The Cost Of Assimilation

By JUDE DOUGHERTY Shaw, Russell. Catholics in America: Religious Identity and Cultural Assimilation From John Carroll to Flannery O’Connor. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2016; 141 pp. This is a delightful book, to say the least, in part because Russell Shaw has a way of uncovering facts you wish you had known all along. The book follows upon and reinforces Shaw’s previous work, American Church. In the preface to the volume, Shaw suggests that the Church may need to reassess its former policy of unconditional assimilation into American secular culture. The cost of assimilation, he believes, has grown unacceptably high as secular culture has become increasingly hostile to Catholic life. He was not the first to pass such a judgment. Orestes…Continue Reading

What Is The FBI Hiding?

September 19, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on What Is The FBI Hiding?

By ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO Earlier this past week, Republican leaders in both houses of Congress took the FBI to task for its failure to be transparent. In the House, it was apparently necessary to serve a subpoena on an FBI agent to obtain what members of Congress want to see; and in the Senate, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee accused the FBI itself of lawbreaking. Here is the back story. Ever since FBI Director James Comey announced on July 5 he was recommending that the Department of Justice not seek charges against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as a result of her failure to safeguard state secrets during her time in office, many in Congress have had a…Continue Reading

Stop Big Government, Seek Bigger Growth

September 18, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Stop Big Government, Seek Bigger Growth

By TERENCE P. JEFFREY Seventeen years ago, near the close of the 20th century, the typical American household had a higher income than it did in 2015. The Census Bureau’s annual report on income and poverty in the United States, released this past week, did not focus on that fact. But it did note that real median household income was higher in 2015 than in 2014. “Median household income was $56,516 in 2015, an increase in real terms of 5.2 percent from the 2014 median of $53,718,” the report said in its “Highlights” section. “This is the first annual increase in median household income since 2007, the year before the most recent recession,” the report said. In 2007 — nine…Continue Reading

The Case Against The Preposterous

September 17, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on The Case Against The Preposterous

By DONALD DeMARCO It would seem unnecessary to build a case against the preposterous. It would seem like arguing against things that are self-evidently foolish, moronic, or idiotic. Yet, there is a certain proclivity alive in society for doing things that are preposterous, a phenomenon that warrants both attention and correction. This problem came to my attention many years ago when I was teaching a philosophy course to undergraduates. I knew that many of them were in love with what I call “incomplete ideas.” Such students championed freedom, but not responsibility, justice, but not truth, and sex without the complications of personal attachment and pregnancy. My challenge was to wean them of their affection for singularity, that is, the mistake…Continue Reading

Culture Of Life 101… “Goals And Strategies Of The Pro-Euthanasia Movement”

September 16, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Culture Of Life 101… “Goals And Strategies Of The Pro-Euthanasia Movement”

By BRIAN CLOWES Conclusion (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 on euthanasia, e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.) + + + “We’ve got a duty to die and get out of the way with all of our machines and artificial hearts and everything else like that and let the other society, our kids, build a reasonable life” — former Colorado Gov. Richard D. Lamm. + + + Euthanasia: How It Will Be. Leaders of the pro-euthanasia movement pretended to care for the suffering as they began their media propaganda campaign. However, as their cause advanced, their emphasis gradually morphed…Continue Reading

Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic… Muzzling Lawyers: The Next Assault On Free Speech?

September 15, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic… Muzzling Lawyers: The Next Assault On Free Speech?

By STEPHEN M. KRASON (Editor’s Note: Stephen M. Krason’s Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic column appears monthly [sometimes bimonthly] 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 recently finished the writing of a book that critically examines and evaluates current American liberalism and conservatism in light of Catholic social teaching. (This article first appeared in…Continue Reading

Cardinal Sarah… Poverty Vs. Destitution

September 14, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Cardinal Sarah… Poverty Vs. Destitution

By PHILIP TROWER I’m sure that at some time or other you have enjoyed the experience of hearing an idea you are attached to confirmed by some highly qualified public figure. It isn’t a matter of intellectual vanity. It’s more a matter of relief. “Thank goodness, I didn’t get it wrong after all.” In my case the most recent experience had to do with an idea which now seems to be widespread among Catholics and Christians generally. Followers of our Lord, it is said, are by definition committed to abolishing world poverty. Leaving aside the question as to whether this is possible, it should be the final goal of the pursuit of justice and peace and world history generally. But…Continue Reading

Eight Is Enough

September 13, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Eight Is Enough

By REY FLORES No, I am not writing about the 1970s television show nor am I writing about the number of children Catholic families should have. I am writing about eight years being enough of a president who has done exactly what he promised — to fundamentally change the United States of America. For this 2016 election, let’s not blow it again. It’s been a torturous eight years, waking up every morning knowing that Barack Obama was occupying the White House, armed with his pen and phone, surrounded by an equally corrupt gang of bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. In the fall of 2008, I was working as a new and used car salesman in Oak Lawn, Ill. My co-workers, managers,…Continue Reading