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Listening To Our Adversaries

February 6, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Listening To Our Adversaries

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK A recent article by Mary E. Hunt on the web site Religion Dispatches offered an example of the benefits of paying attention to what is being said on the secular left. What our adversaries have to say on an issue can offer us insights we do not hear from our allies in the culture wars. Sometimes they offer reasons for optimism, sometimes greater reasons for concern. Hunt’s article, which focused on the “liberal” policies of Pope Francis, provides both. Hunt describes herself as a “feminist theologian” and a “Roman Catholic active in the women-church movement,” who “lectures and writes on theology and ethics with particular attention to liberation issues.” The reason for optimism? Hunt’s criticism of…Continue Reading

Reconnecting With Mary… St. Joseph And The Holy Family

February 5, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Reconnecting With Mary… St. Joseph And The Holy Family

By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY The previous article looked the role of St. Joseph during the birth of Jesus, and now we will look at further events in his life and how devotion to him gradually arose in the Church. Joseph had an important role to play following the visit of the Wise Men, and the hurried departure of the Holy Family to avoid the wrath of King Herod. Once again, an angel appeared to him in a dream and instructed him to flee to Egypt with Mary and the Child, because Herod wanted to kill him. Joseph arose that same night in obedience to this command and the Holy Family departed for Egypt, where they stayed until Herod was dead.…Continue Reading

Culture Of Life 101 . . . “What Is The Abortion Situation In The Caribbean?”

February 4, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Culture Of Life 101 . . . “What Is The Abortion Situation In The Caribbean?”

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 18 of The Facts of Life, “The International Abortion Situation,” e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.) +    +    + Many have an idealistic view of the islands and the people of the Caribbean, envisioning fancy alcoholic drinks and spotless beaches featuring young men and women with exotic accents lazing around under palm trees. But step back a couple of hundred yards from those beaches and you will find the real people of the Caribbean: hard-working, generous, and friendly despite living in great poverty amid natural resources that would lift up the entire region if not for…Continue Reading

International Theological Commission . . . “Violence In The Name Of God Is Heresy”

February 3, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on International Theological Commission . . . “Violence In The Name Of God Is Heresy”

By PAUL LIKOUDIS The International Theological Commission has released a new document in defense of monotheism, refuting the increasingly popular notion that the belief in one God is the root of intolerance and violence. Rather, the document states, it is the “dictatorship of relativism,” identified by Pope Benedict XVI as the force which seeks to ban faith from civil society and political discourse. This new document, reported Sandro Magister for Chiesa January 21, was announced by L’Osservatore Romano in an editorial on January 16. Thus far, it has only appeared in Italian; its translation into eight other languages, including English, is pending. The document the International Theological Commission issued was ordered by Pope Benedict XVI eight years ago. L’Osservatore’s editorial…Continue Reading

41 Years Later . . . Roe V. Wade And Christian Witness

February 2, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on 41 Years Later . . . Roe V. Wade And Christian Witness

By MOST REV. CHARLES CHAPUT, OFM Cap. (Editor’s Note: This commentary, released January 16, first appeared as the weekly column of Archbishop Charles Chaput, OFM Cap., of Philadelphia. It is reprinted here with permission. All rights reserved.) +    +    + January 22 marks the 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, legalizing abortion on demand. Thanks to Roe, abortion has killed more than 50 million unborn children over the past four decades — the equivalent of roughly one in six living Americans; an entire generation extinguished. But alongside the killing spree, and despite the contempt of abortion activists and unfriendly media, the pro-life counterwitness of millions of Americans has also continued. The March for Life this January,…Continue Reading

From Coast To Coast . . . Pro-Lifers Make A Mark For Babies And Moms

February 1, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on From Coast To Coast . . . Pro-Lifers Make A Mark For Babies And Moms

By DEXTER DUGGAN SAN FRANCISCO — An activist black pastor voiced defiance of the Obama administration’s threat to individual conscience through its health-care mandate during speeches in front of San Francisco City Hall at the 10th annual Walk for Life West Coast here. “Enough is enough! We will not surrender our conscience,” said Rev. Clenard Childress Jr., one of four main pro-life speakers at Civic Center Plaza on January 25. “We will stay in the streets. We will engage in civil disobedience.” In his ten-minute talk, Childress recalled that German-born genius and physicist Albert Einstein, who refused to return to that country when National Socialist dictator Adolf Hitler took power, had warned, “Never surrender conscience, even if the state demands…Continue Reading

Be Not Afraid — A Little Louder

January 31, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Be Not Afraid — A Little Louder

By REY FLORES A few years back, I found a pamphlet in the back of a church titled Sing a Little Louder. Some of you may also be familiar with it as well. It is a short, but moving, World War II-era story about a German church which was located near some railroad tracks where Nazi trains used to pass by during church services. When the congregants used to hear the screams and cries of those on the trains headed to the death camps, they would “sing a little louder” to muffle the sound. Perhaps today that is what we are doing to ourselves. We aren’t necessarily singing a little louder, but we are certainly indulging ourselves with all sorts…Continue Reading

Obama’s Final Straw?

January 30, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Obama’s Final Straw?

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK There were many on the right who feared that Barack Obama was the ultimate “Teflon President,” that nothing he did or failed to do would diminish his popularity with a solid majority of the American people. Those fears have been allayed. The disastrous rollout of Obamacare, with the accompanying repetition on the nightly news of the long list of lies and misrepresentations made by the president when he sold the program to the people, seems to have done what the lies over Benghazi, the IRS snooping on Tea Party activists, “Fast and Furious,” and the NSA collection of data on private citizens could not. Obama is shrinking in the polls, to a level matched by the…Continue Reading

Slaughter Of The Innocents . . . Questions About China’s Family Planning Policies

January 29, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Slaughter Of The Innocents . . . Questions About China’s Family Planning Policies

By FR. JOHN FLYNN, LC (Editor’s Note: Fr. John Flynn, LC, wrote this commentary for ZENIT News Agency; all rights reserved.) +    +    + Amid conflicting news reports over changes to the one-child family planning policy in China, disturbing reports continue to arrive about serious abuses of human rights. On December 31, the BBC reported that a Chinese obstetrician is on trial, accused of stealing newborn babies and selling them to child traffickers. Zhang Shuxia was accused of selling seven babies, according to the BBC. Apparently she told the parents their infants were sick, and persuaded them to give the children to her. Just the day before, Radio Free Asia reported that four Uyghur women in China’s northwestern region of…Continue Reading

Culture Of Life 101 . . . “Profile: The Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation”

January 28, 2014 Featured Today Comments Off on Culture Of Life 101 . . . “Profile: The Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation”

By BRIAN CLOWES (Editor’s Note: Brian Clowes has been director of research and training at Human Life International since 1995. For a PowerPoint presentation on the Gates Foundation, e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.) +    +    + We’ve all heard of how Bill Gates’ genius and foresight (along with a hefty dose of luck) allowed him to become the richest man on Earth. Forbes estimates his present fortune to be about $67 billion. Exactly how much money is this? How can we even begin to visualize this gigantic number? If the Gates fortune were converted into crisp new one-dollar bills, it would consume the entire output of all of the United States Mints for a decade, and would make a solid block…Continue Reading