Saturday 18th May 2024

Home » Featured Today » Recent Articles:

Paying College Athletes

May 9, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Paying College Athletes

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK At first glance one would think there is no moral dimension or “Catholic angle” to the question about whether college athletes should be permitted to unionize, or to whether they should be paid above and beyond the tuition, room, and board scholarships that are currently given to them. But that may not be the case. Catholic colleges are among the schools with big-time athletic programs, especially basketball. Any dishonesty that is embedded in the current system, or in proposals to change it, involves them. This issue came out front and center in recent weeks because of a ruling by a regional director of the National Labor Relations Board that gave college football players the right to…Continue Reading

Pope Francis’ Devotion To Our Lady Of Fatima

May 8, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Pope Francis’ Devotion To Our Lady Of Fatima

By DONAL FOLEY This May 13 is the 97th anniversary of the first apparition of our Lady to the shepherd children at Fatima in May 1917, an event which took place at the height of World War I. The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Fouad Twal, is due to preside over the May 12-13 celebrations in Fatima this year, but in three years’ time, in May 2017, it will be the centennial of the 1917 apparition, and there are expectations that Pope Francis will go to Fatima for this. It is thought that he could possibly canonize the two youngest seers, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, who were beatified by Pope John Paul II in Fatima in May 2000. As part…Continue Reading

A False And Pernicious Ideal

May 7, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on A False And Pernicious Ideal

By DONALD DeMARCO A distinguished television personality has complained that Ten Commandments are far too many. He wants the number to be reduced to one: “Don’t hurt anybody.” This sentiment fits nicely into the national phobia of offending anyone or making anyone feel bad. What seems to be a kind and humanistic ideal, however, is really not only false but pernicious. Take the case of eight-year-old Stephanie Templeton. She is a third-grade student at a Toronto elementary school. Considering her tender age, she exhibits a remarkable and most admirable sensitivity to the needs of others. During a canned-goods drive conducted over the Christmas Season at her school, Stephanie was most eager, in her father’s words, “to help people who are…Continue Reading

Obama Does His Best . . . To Ensure Dangerous Aliens Remain Free Within U.S.

May 6, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Obama Does His Best . . . To Ensure Dangerous Aliens Remain Free Within U.S.

By DEXTER DUGGAN PHOENIX — Political appointee Jeh Johnson, Barack Obama’s secretary of Homeland Security, expressed perplexity at the idea his department isn’t doing its job, the Washington Examiner reported. The Examiner posted on April 27 that Johnson had just told ABC’s This Week: “I don’t understand those who say we are not enforcing the law. We are enforcing the law every day.” However, at the beginning of April, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, in Arizona’s most populous county, had written directly to Johnson to complain that his federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) wasn’t doing its job at all, with illegal aliens here repeatedly arrested for serious offenses. Arpaio told Johnson on April 1 this was placing his…Continue Reading

Is America Still A Serious Country?

May 5, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Is America Still A Serious Country?

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN Well, it looks like Donald Sterling will not be getting that NAACP lifetime achievement award he was set to receive at the civil rights organization’s 100th anniversary celebration in Los Angeles in May. Allegedly, Sterling’s 30-something girlfriend, a model who goes by the name of V. Stiviano, whom Sterling’s wife of 50 years is suing, taped these remarks of the 80-year-old owner of the L.A. Clippers: “You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it…and not to bring them to my games. “. . .Don’t put him [Magic Johnson] on an Instagram for the world to have to…Continue Reading

An Evening At The Movies: Moms’ Night Out

May 4, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on An Evening At The Movies: Moms’ Night Out

By MARY FLORES (Mary Flores is a home-schooling mother of six children and blessed to be married to her “path to Heaven,” Rey, for 14 years. She welcomes your comments at mcfloresamdg@gmail.com.) +    +    + I was excited to find that my husband had another movie to review. Rey and I both enjoy this little perk of freelance writing. With six children 13 and under, we rarely go out to a movie, so I look forward to movie reviews. Most of the movies Rey has reviewed have been pretty good. After watching the trailer for Moms’ Night Out, I had my doubts. In fact, I told him I didn’t want to watch it. I finally gave in. Within the first…Continue Reading

Canonized Popes Serve As Models For Francis’ Church

May 3, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Canonized Popes Serve As Models For Francis’ Church

By FRANCO PISANO VATICAN CITY (AsiaNews) — Canonizing “them both together will be, I believe, a message for the Church: These two were wonderful, both of them,” said Pope Francis on July 29 of last year, on the plane that took him back to Rome after World Youth Day. His words illustrate why he decided to canonize John XXIII and John Paul II on the same day, April 27. Pope Francis’ decision to emphasize to the whole Church the example of two “wonderful” Popes who experienced holiness is not only the natural conclusion of the canonical process started well before he began his pontificate, but it is also the expression of a “relationship” with the two Popes that Francis has…Continue Reading

Culture Of Life 101 . . . “Profile: UNICEF”

May 2, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Culture Of Life 101 . . . “Profile: UNICEF”

By BRIAN CLOWES (Editor’s Note: Brian Clowes has been director of research and training at Human Life International since 1995. For documentation and a much more detailed dossier on UNICEF, e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.) +    +    + Many of us remember little ghosts and goblins appearing on our front porch every Halloween with their plastic UNICEF baskets in hand. Today, UNICEF fundraising has evolved, and almost all international airports have large clear UNICEF plastic bins for travelers to deposit their unusable foreign currency. In many developing nations, the UNICEF logo is almost omnipresent — on billboards, on UNICEF vehicles, in the papers, and, most important, in people’s minds. UNICEF was enormously successful at accomplishing its original mission of providing emergency…Continue Reading

The Virtue Of Religion

May 1, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on The Virtue Of Religion

By JUDE P. DOUGHERTY Concern for the poor is not an identifying mark of religion, media accounts notwithstanding. Within the West, secular agencies and anti-Christian governments alike profess to be concerned for the poor, often for motivations suspect. Religion is concerned primarily with worship and with the things that pertain to worship. Concern for the poor did not build the great cathedrals and monastic edifices of Europe, but love of God did, as communities placed their wealth and art in the service of homage. Given that religion is often equated with Auguste Comte’s Godless “religion of humanity,” a few observations may be in order. Religion is God-directed insofar as it is the payment of an acknowledged debt, and as such…Continue Reading

Signs Abortion Clinic Inspections Bill . . . But Gov. Jan Brewer Is Not Another Sen. Ted Cruz

April 30, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Signs Abortion Clinic Inspections Bill . . . But Gov. Jan Brewer Is Not Another Sen. Ted Cruz

By DEXTER DUGGAN PHOENIX — When Jan Brewer announced in March that she wouldn’t seek a third consecutive term as governor of Arizona, she said in an interview that she could be spending time on the campaign trail promoting and raising funds for other candidates instead. But before eager conservatives in other states start sending her speaking invitations with the confident expectation that she’s pretty much like Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), they should weigh the evidence that she’s got some strong streaks in her more like Northeastern “moderate” Gov. Chris Christie (R., N.J.). The Grand Canyon State’s and Garden State’s governors are both pretty much pro-life Republicans, but certainly not the sort of conservative GOP hero that the Lone…Continue Reading