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Culture Of Life 101… “The First Time Around: Euthanasia In Nazi Germany”

June 23, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Culture Of Life 101… “The First Time Around: Euthanasia In Nazi Germany”

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, a 150-page treatise on all of the aspects of euthanasia, e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.) + + + Step 2: Dehumanization The first step toward the legalization of euthanasia is the launch of a saturation propaganda campaign with the eager assistance of the media. The second step is to dehumanize the target populations. Most societies consider it morally repugnant to exterminate those who are traditionally recognized as human beings, so the elderly and ill must be demoted from persons to non-persons. Nazi Germany. It is significant that anti-Semitism…Continue Reading

Fr. Pavone Says . . . Trump Speech “Crystal Clear” Supporting Life, Religious Liberty

June 22, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Fr. Pavone Says . . . Trump Speech “Crystal Clear” Supporting Life, Religious Liberty

By DEXTER DUGGAN Presumed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has an entire political-party structure behind him that is pro-life, so it’s not a matter of simply having to hope that Trump will follow pro-life principles, Fr. Frank Pavone told The Wanderer after attending an important Trump speech for social and religious conservatives. Pavone, national director of the New York-based Priests for Life (priestsforlife.org), added, “The man shapes the office, but the office also shapes the man.” As Trump began his June 10 talk to the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington, D.C., he acknowledged the presence of religious leaders including Pavone. The real-estate mogul hit exactly the points that the religious leaders themselves would have made if they had…Continue Reading

We Should Not Aim For Purgatory

June 21, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on We Should Not Aim For Purgatory

By JOHN YOUNG “I’ll be satisfied if I get to Purgatory.” I recently heard that statement from a Catholic, and I think that mindset is probably quite widespread. It may be said in a thoughtless way, or may even be a sign of humility, confessing that one is far from the holiness one should have. But if the person really means it this shows a very poor appreciation of what we should aim for in the spiritual life. One thing that this attitude overlooks is the seriousness of the suffering in Purgatory. It is true that the soul there will fully accept the suffering, but it is also true that the suffering is intense, and should not be lightly dismissed…Continue Reading

A Book Review… Principles Of Interpretation

June 20, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review… Principles Of Interpretation

By JUDE DOUGHERTY BOLD INSERT Polanyi, Michael. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy, Enlarged Edition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2015. xxviii + 428 pp. This is an old book, first published in 1958 but still relevant, that the University of Chicago Press has seen fit to reproduce in a new edition with a valuable foreword by the distinguished historian of science, Mary Jo Nye of Oregon State University. Michael Polanyi (1891-1976) was a Hungarian-born chemist and philosopher who, after earning two degrees at the University of Budapest, a medical degree in 1913 and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1917, left Hungary to pursue a career in Germany. He subsequently became director of the chemical kinetics research group…Continue Reading

Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic . . . Donald Trump And The 2016 Election: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

June 19, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic . . . Donald Trump And The 2016 Election: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

By STEPHEN M. KRASON Part 2 (Editor’s Note: Stephen M. Krason is a 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. He recently completed a book that critically examines American liberalism and conservatism in light of Catholic social teaching. Dr. Krason holds the copyright to this column; all rights reserved.) + + + In one of my columns, I talked about the need in these threatening times for an “American Cincinnatus,” a president who would exert executive power to an extraordinary — but fully legitimate — degree to save the Constitution.…Continue Reading

A Book Review . . . Anti-Catholic Myths Exploded

June 18, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review . . . Anti-Catholic Myths Exploded

By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History by Rodney Stark (Templeton Press, 280 pages, hardcover $27.95; call 800-621-2736 or 773-702-7000). Also available at amazon.com. In this, his latest book, social sciences professor Rodney Stark, sets out to show how centuries of anti-Catholic prejudice have done great harm to the Catholic cause, and to that of truth. The book consists of ten chapters, and in each of these the author takes an anti-Catholic myth, and shows how over a period of time this myth became the “conventional wisdom.” Then he proceeds to establish what the actual truth of the matter is. There is an extensive bibliography running to 14 pages, and numerous endnotes to back up…Continue Reading

Culture Of Life 101 . . . “The First Time Around: Euthanasia In Nazi Germany”

June 17, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Culture Of Life 101 . . . “The First Time Around: Euthanasia In Nazi Germany”

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, a 150-page treatise on all of the aspects of euthanasia, e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.) + + + “The Hippocratic Oath . . . is an honorable historical document, which, however, does not altogether fit present times. If it is to be applied today, the wording has to be changed very extensively, and in these reformulations a series of new oaths have been drawn up which have only a vague relationship to the ancient Hippocratic Oath…a [theory of] medicine based on the principle of nil nocere [“do no harm”]…Continue Reading

Confusing Even The Devout . . . The Troubling Statements Of Pope Francis

June 16, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Confusing Even The Devout . . . The Troubling Statements Of Pope Francis

By JOHN-HENRY WESTEN (Editor’s Note: John-Henry Westen is the editor-in-chief of LifeSiteNews. This essay appeared June 5 at LifeSiteNews.com; all rights reserved.) + + + Two weeks ago the latest controversial interview with Pope Francis hit the press, this time in France with the daily newspaper La Croix. Contrary to the teaching of previous Popes, such as Leo XIII in Libertas and Pius XI in Quas Primas, Pope Francis said, “States must be secular. Confessional states end badly. That goes against the grain of History.” In the same interview, Francis suggested a comparison between Christianity and Islamic adherents’ use of conquest to impose their beliefs. “It is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam,”…Continue Reading

Riots Against Trump . . . There’s More Behind The Violence Than Latino Illegal Immigrants

June 15, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Riots Against Trump . . . There’s More Behind The Violence Than Latino Illegal Immigrants

By DEXTER DUGGAN PHOENIX — Shocking riots by some Latinos against Donald Trump’s supporters and even civic authority bring to mind defiant illegal aliens. But it’s more than likely that some of the violence against the Republican presidential candidate’s followers and the police comes from young legal residents or U.S. citizens who’ve been indoctrinated at school or elsewhere. The young people don’t have to be freshly arrived from south of the international line to have been propagandized in “ethnic studies” or “multiculturalism” classes or some variation of that, which denounce “white European” culture and celebrate a legendary brown Southwestern kingdom of Aztlan. To decry and even attack the “Europeans” is thought to be a step toward the social justice of…Continue Reading

Wake Up, America!

June 14, 2016 Featured Today Comments Off on Wake Up, America!

By ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO While Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are battling in their final round in the Democratic primaries and Donald Trump is arguing that Clinton should be in prison for failing to safeguard state secrets while she was secretary of state, the same FBI that is diligently investigating her is quietly and perniciously seeking to cut more holes in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. That amendment — which requires the government to obtain a search warrant issued by a judge based upon some evidence of criminal wrongdoing, called probable cause, before the government can search persons, houses, papers or effects — is the linchpin of the right to privacy, famously referred to by Justice Louis Brandeis as…Continue Reading