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Remembering President George H.W. Bush . . . How The Media Spigot Runs Hot And Cold For Friends And Foes

December 10, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on Remembering President George H.W. Bush . . . How The Media Spigot Runs Hot And Cold For Friends And Foes

By DEXTER DUGGAN The media spigot was running full gush yet again after President George H.W. Bush left this life. The words flooded out that he was a tower of civility and courtesy, a model of moderation, an example so sorely needed today for us all. The spigot gets turned on, and it gets turned off. Better to bring your own bottled water than expect to get truth serum from this faucet. Bush One hadn’t always fared so well in this liquid environment. Still, just a few months ago the spigot spewed the same juice when Sen. John McCain’s death arrived —what a mighty example for us all, a lesson of civility we so sorely need, bipartisanship and cooperation instead…Continue Reading

A Leaven In The World . . . Apologia

December 9, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on A Leaven In The World . . . Apologia

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK Everyone makes mistakes. Not everyone, however, can admit it. It’s a matter of theological truth that “to err is human,” because, in fact, sin is a mistake and we are all sinners. One who has put opinion to paper in black and white for nearly 20 years and in nearly 900 columns for this newspaper, as have I, has had ample opportunity to commit uncured ideas to print, to choose words that appear to impute motives or to overstate a case of praise or blame. Mea culpas must be ever at hand for expression of the necessary attempt at reconciliation with those who feel unjustly treated. Explanations must be offered in those cases where misunderstandings…Continue Reading

Fireside Reading For Christmas

December 8, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on Fireside Reading For Christmas

By CHRISTOPHER MANION This Christmas, good readers should celebrate good writing. And we should also share it. In the spirit of Christmas cheer, we offer here some suggestions that should brighten any smile and invite another log on the fire in every home. We begin with Faith and Politics (Ignatius Press), a selection of Pope Benedict XVI’s writings that cover a wide range of issues touching on politics while “insisting on the centrality of the question of God.” Wasting no time, the Pope gets right to the point: “the unredeemed state of the world consists precisely in the failure to understand the meaning of creation, and the failure to recognize truth; as a result, the rule of pragmatism is imposed,…Continue Reading

Remembering George H.W. Bush

December 7, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on Remembering George H.W. Bush

By BILL DONOHUE Catholic League President Bill Donohue on December 5 recalled his memories of the late President George H.W. Bush: During the 1988 presidential campaign, I was a Bradley Resident Scholar at The Heritage Foundation. My first book, The Politics of the American Civil Liberties Union, published in 1985, was the magnet that landed me the job. It was also a time when Michael Dukakis, the Democratic nominee for president, loudly proclaimed that he was “a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union.” It didn’t take long before those working for Vice President George H.W. Bush contacted me hoping to obtain inside information on the organization: Bush was running for president. I happily gave the Bush team what…Continue Reading

Strickland And Mueller Napalm Martin’s Bridge

December 6, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on Strickland And Mueller Napalm Martin’s Bridge

By SHAUN KENNEY Expanding just a bit on last week’s discourse regarding the tête-à-tête between Bishop Joseph Strickland of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, and Fr. James Martin, SJ — author of Building a Bridge and consultant to the Vatican Communications Office — it seems as if Strickland’s critique earned a rather lengthy response from Martin that is worth a deeper dive. Charitably, Martin had the decency not to call Bishop Strickland a member of the “Catholic alt-right” for his defense of the Magisterium (duly noted). Nor did he call Gerhard Cardinal Mueller a member of a vast neo-Nazi network for defending Church teaching (also, duly noted). Martin offers two points. First and foremost, Martin insists that he is not…Continue Reading

In New Book On Clergy… Pope Francis Addresses Homosexuality

December 6, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on In New Book On Clergy… Pope Francis Addresses Homosexuality

VATICAN CITY (CNA) — In a just-published book-length interview, Pope Francis addressed gifts and challenges for clerical and religious vocations, among them the challenge of homosexuality in the clergy. “The issue of homosexuality is a very serious issue that must be adequately discerned from the beginning with the candidates, if that is the case. We have to be exacting. In our societies it even seems that homosexuality is fashionable and that mentality, in some way, also influences the life of the Church,” the Pope says in the book The Strength of a Vocation, released December 3 in ten languages. In an excerpt from the book, released November 30 by Religión Digital, the Pope said he is concerned about the issue…Continue Reading

Martin’s “Catholic Alt-Right”: The Slander Of A Weak Argument

December 5, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on Martin’s “Catholic Alt-Right”: The Slander Of A Weak Argument

By SHAUN KENNEY Allow me to continue my admiration/bewilderment relationship with Fr. James Martin, SJ, vis-à-vis his characterization of his critics as the “Catholic alt-right” — a title that most likely is intended to extend to this publication, but for whom Martin reserved for his troika of critics: Church Militant, LifeSiteNews, and the Lepanto Institute. NBC News didn’t exactly do a full-length article on this, but it will be just enough for Martin to carry back to Fr. Antonio Spadaro, SJ, at the Vatican communications office and share with folks at La Croix International, a French-based site designed to be a simulacrum of what the “reformers of the reform” see in their critics. Of course, the media do not exactly…Continue Reading

Interview With Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke . . . The Faithful Are Suffering…But Schism Can Never Be Right

December 5, 2018 Frontpage, Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Interview With Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke . . . The Faithful Are Suffering…But Schism Can Never Be Right

By PEGGY MOEN (Editor’s Note: This interview took place in Rome on October 22, 2018, the Feast of St. John Paul II, during the final week of the October 3-28 Synod on Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment and before its conclusion. See The Wanderer, November 1, 2018, p. 1 for an article based on this interview.) + + + Q. Your Eminence, the first thing I wanted to ask is, many Catholics, following this Summer of Shame, think they are living through the worst period of Church history. Do you agree? Cardinal Burke: It’s certainly among the worst, if not the worst. The Church has had other periods of great scandal. But this has dimensions about it that…Continue Reading

In Twenty Years . . . Why Democrat Leaders Turned On Their Heels Against Pro-Lifers

December 4, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on In Twenty Years . . . Why Democrat Leaders Turned On Their Heels Against Pro-Lifers

By DEXTER DUGGAN Highly placed Catholic liberal Democrats were outraged when President Bill Clinton in April 1996 issued the first of what was to be two vetoes of congressional bills against repellent partial-birth abortion. His other stubborn veto came in October 1997. The Slickster, as some foes called Clinton, insisted on the slaughter, and Catholic Democrats later learned to eat defeat with a shrug. As the first of the two bills had proceeded on the legislative pathway from the House to the Senate, columnist George Will noted in his column in Newsweek on December 11, 1995, that 73 House Democrats voted for this pro-life bill. In her opinion column in the April 14, 1996, Washington Post, just after the first…Continue Reading

Is Due Process An Outdated Concept?

December 3, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on Is Due Process An Outdated Concept?

By MIKE MANNO It hasn’t been that long ago that we should have already forgotten the lessons learned from the Justice Kavanaugh confirmation. The judge, having a heretofore sterling reputation, was assailed from the left as some type of sexual predator. It was claimed that as a teenager he had groped a young student, although the accuser could not remember exactly when, or where, or if the groping might have been from another man. But she was sure it happened. There followed a litany of other accusations that the judge had arranged for everything from the gang raping of coeds to spiking punch bowls. And all through the judge’s ordeal, there were those who claimed that “accusers” must always be…Continue Reading