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Culture Of Life 101 . . . “Abortifacient Brief: Implants”

December 26, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Culture Of Life 101 . . . “Abortifacient Brief: Implants”

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 2 of The Facts of Life, “Abortifacients,” e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.) + + + Birth control implants are slowly becoming more popular as a method of birth control all over the world primarily because of heavy promotion by “family planners.” Implants have several advantages from the population control viewpoint. They do not require daily attention, they have a high effectiveness rate because the cause of most contraceptive failures (user error) is eliminated, and they are effective for a long period of time, from three to seven years. There are three types of implants currently…Continue Reading

Pope To Replace Head Of Swiss Guards

December 25, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Pope To Replace Head Of Swiss Guards

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican has announced that Colonel Daniel Anrig, the commandant of the Swiss Guards, will resign at the end of January 2015, according to a Catholic World News report on catholicculture.org. Colonel Anrig, who took over the leadership of the Swiss Guard in 2008, had served out a normal five-year term, which was extended by Pope Francis in 2013. But the Pope has now chosen to replace him. The Vatican did not indicate the reason for the change, although there were reports that Colonel Anrig’s strict disciplinary standards did not match the Pope’s more informal style. A replacement has not yet been named.

The Unbelieving Zacharias

December 24, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on The Unbelieving Zacharias

By MARK AMOROSE (Luke 1:18) The father of a speechless babe you’ll be. This seems to you a dubious decree. Therefore, a speechless father will you be. And since you ask too anxiously a sign To prove the promise, now you must resign Yourself to asking with a silent sign. + + + Latin original from Complete Poetry of Richard Crashaw, ed. Geo. Walton Williams (New York: Doubleday, 1970), 261: Infantis fore te patrem, res mira videtur; Infans interea factus es ipse pater. Et dum promissi signum (nimis anxie) quaeris, Jam nisi per signum quaerere nulla potes.

The Exit Doors Are Right There

December 23, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on The Exit Doors Are Right There

By REY FLORES It’s the most wonderful time of the year, or so the song goes. Jack Frost is nipping at our nose, chestnuts are roasting by the fire, grandpa is slugging down the eggnog, the IRS is in our pockets, and the NSA is spying on us 24/7. I know it’s hard to separate ourselves sometimes from the craziness of the world like our jobs or the constant bad news about the latest mass shooting, riot, or ISIS beheadings, but let us take a break this Christmas week. Let’s enjoy our surroundings at home, at our parishes, and even in the annals of our own consciences. This Christmas, I’d like to give the gift of an open exit door…Continue Reading

To The Infant Martyrs

December 22, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on To The Infant Martyrs

By MARK AMOROSE (Matt. 2:16-18) Pour out your smiling souls into the sky: Your tongues will learn to speak as spirits fly. Seek not maternal milk from earthly clay: Your sustenance will be the Milky Way. + + + Latin original from Complete Poetry of Richard Crashaw, ed. Geo. Walton Williams. (New York: Doubleday, 1970), 289: Fundite ridentes animas; effundite coelo: Discet ibi vestra (o quam bene!) lingua loqui. Nec vos lac vestrum et maternos quaerite fontes: Que vos expectat lactea tota via est.

Anna’s Wish

December 21, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Anna’s Wish

By DEREK BECHER Anna lay still on her hospital bed, which was tilted slightly upward, while she slept. Her parents sat beside her, with their hands clenched together, sharing a prayer as they watched their only child laboring with each breath. She had only just turned nine, but the brave little girl had fought the dreadful disease with the fervor of a healthy adult, impressing her family and surprising her doctors with her will to live. Outside the window, snow fell gently in the December night. It was and always had been her favorite time of year. Anna loved the snow; she would lie in its softness and move her arms and legs to make perfect little snow angels. She…Continue Reading

Cardinal Piacenza To Confessors.. Remember The Priceless Ministry Of Confession At Christmas

December 20, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Cardinal Piacenza To Confessors.. Remember The Priceless Ministry Of Confession At Christmas

VATICAN CITY (ZENIT) — Here is a letter to confessors from Mauro Cardinal Piacenza, major penitentiary, released Gaudete Sunday, December 14. In the letter, the cardinal emphasized that “the time of Advent, and especially the days of the beautiful novena of Christmas, are characterized by a particularly attentive waiting, not only by men for God…but also by God for men, whom He loves.” ZENIT News Agency provided the text; all rights reserved. + + + My dear brother Confessors, Illumined by the light of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, mystical Dawn of the Redemption, we are awaiting with trepidation to experience the birth of the Son of God, while already full of thanksgiving for the gifts by which the Lord chooses…Continue Reading

Archbishop Of Karachi . . . Says “The Taliban Will Stop At Nothing Now”

December 19, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Archbishop Of Karachi . . . Says “The Taliban Will Stop At Nothing Now”

By JOHN PONTIFEX LONDON (ACN News) — Innocent people in Pakistan — young and old alike — are now at increased risk of terrorist attack, according to the leader of the country’s Catholics, who has called on the government to step up security in the wake of the Peshawar school massacre. Archbishop Joseph Coutts of Karachi said that the December 16 incident at the Army Public School was a “revenge attack” against the Pakistan military, and that the Taliban “will stop at nothing now” to harm people. Speaking on December 17 from Karachi, Archbishop Joseph Coutts, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Pakistan, told the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need that the threat to schools, hospitals,…Continue Reading

Ten Complacent Maxims

December 18, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Ten Complacent Maxims

By DONALD DeMARCO Mark Strand, Pulitzer Prize winner and former U.S. poet laureate, passed away recently (November 29, 2014). He was a staunch atheist, declaring that he had never met God and had never been to Heaven. He said: “Although there are a lot of people claiming that God is telling them what to do, I have no idea how God talks to them. Maybe they are getting secret emails.” In one of his poems he imagined how it felt “to open the dictionary of the Beyond and discover what one suspected, that the only word in it is nothing.” His daughter Jessica spoke for the family in saying that “we weren’t a religious people, but we worshipped at the…Continue Reading

Culture Of Life 101 . . . “Abortifacient Brief: Depo-Provera”

December 17, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Culture Of Life 101 . . . “Abortifacient Brief: Depo-Provera”

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 2 of The Facts of Life, “Abortifacients,” e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.) + + + Depo-Provera is an injectable contraceptive drug that sometimes has an abortifacient effect. It also possesses a long and checkered history rife with fraud and abuse. In 1967, Upjohn Pharmaceuticals began an extensive 11-year trial of Depo at Atlanta’s Grady Clinic in its attempts to get the drug approved for use in the United States. The injection was tested on a disproportionate number of poor, black, and rural women without informed consent and without giving the women information on the drug’s…Continue Reading