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A Leaven In The World… A Tale Of Two Silences

September 10, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on A Leaven In The World… A Tale Of Two Silences

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK Many Catholics are confused. A Pope who, up to now, hardly left a subject untouched in his ongoing conversation with the world, on topics ranging from advice on not ironing your son’s shirts if you want him to move out of the house, to the “emergency” of plastic trash in the ocean, has absolutely nothing to say. About charges of the most serious kind in regard to his conduct by a man with the ability to know, a man who had access to the Pope and worked directly with him. God has a way of writing straight with crooked lines. Viganò ended up in Washington, with a front-row seat to the unfolding McCarrick affair, because…Continue Reading

The Crisis Starts With Cardinal Spellman

September 9, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on The Crisis Starts With Cardinal Spellman

By SHAUN KENNEY One of the most striking things in the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report was the diagnosis of when these morally withered predators entered the priesthood. Exercises in post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning abound, blaming the Second Vatican Council, the Novus Ordo Mass, the freewheeling 1960s or the Vietnam era following the 1970s. To get to the taproot of the rot, one must go all the way back to the late 1930s and witness the meteoric rise of one prelate who shaped the modern Catholic Church in America: Francis Cardinal Spellman. Ironically enough, Spellman’s rise to power was enabled by his acting as informant against a bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston, who not only had a mistress…Continue Reading

Silence, No Longer A Refuge

September 8, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on Silence, No Longer A Refuge

Pope Francis’s characteristic tactic of running out the clock with his silence and evasion of critical issues of importance such as the Dubia have seemed to serve him well up to this point in his papacy. With support among the clergy increasing daily for the Vigano testimony and the latest news regarding legal investigations and the withholding of financial support for the Church, this strategy of evasion and silence will be more difficult to maintain and most likely start to crack in the days ahead. The Associated Press reported Thursday,  “New York and New Jersey launched new investigations into the Roman Catholic Church’s handling of clergy sex abuse allegations Thursday as the number of similar inquiries around the country continues…Continue Reading

In August… Bell Tolls For Newsworthy Figures, Church Authority, And GOP Credibility

September 8, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on In August… Bell Tolls For Newsworthy Figures, Church Authority, And GOP Credibility

By DEXTER DUGGAN PHOENIX — Deaths and denunciations crowded in within hours as establishments quaked in late August. Sen. John McCain, 81, expired of aggressive brain cancer at his ranch near Sedona, Ariz., on August 25, the same Saturday that a lengthy letter released from former Vatican nuncio to the United States Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò dropped a bombshell alleging tolerance of sex-abuse corruption in the heart of the Catholic Church. Viganò called for Pope Francis to resign. Asked for a reaction, the Pope commented, “I won’t say a word about it” and said that journalists should reach a judgment themselves. It hardly seemed an adequate response in such a serious situation. The Daily Caller site reported that critics of…Continue Reading

Molly Tibbetts, RIP

September 7, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on Molly Tibbetts, RIP

By MIKE MANNO As regular readers of this column have probably surmised, I live in Iowa; more particularly, West Des Moines. From my house to Brooklyn, Iowa, where college student Molly Tibbetts was abducted and murdered, is about 80 miles, about an hour and a quarter along Interstate 80. I mention this because of its proximity; the happenings in Brooklyn had quite an impact on the folks around here. In fact, anything in Iowa has quite an impact on the entire state. That’s just the way Iowans are. Brooklyn itself is a peaceful place, noted for its avenue of flags: 20 x 38 foot American and state flags on 80 foot poles, designed so that they can be seen from…Continue Reading

As McCain Drops Torch . . . Establishment’s McSally Ready To Keep Arizona “Moderate” In Senate

September 6, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on As McCain Drops Torch . . . Establishment’s McSally Ready To Keep Arizona “Moderate” In Senate

By DEXTER DUGGAN PHOENIX — As John McCain lay in state beneath the Arizona Capitol dome here, the establishment he worked to build received an injection of new life as results came in from the Arizona primary election held the previous day. The August 28 primary produced a solid win for establishment-backed candidate Martha McSally, seeking the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by McCain’s close ally Jeff Flake. Having stepped aside due to his unpopularity, Flake, who had served only one six-year term as a U.S. senator, nevertheless bestowed his belated blessing on McSally while polls were open. This was likely to draw undesired attention to what she actually stood for, despite McSally’s strong efforts to run away from her…Continue Reading

Are The Interventionists Now Leaderless?

September 5, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on Are The Interventionists Now Leaderless?

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN “McCain’s Death Leaves Void” ran The Wall Street Journal headline over a front-page story that began: “The death of John McCain will leave Congress without perhaps its loudest voice in support of the robust internationalism that has defined the country’s security relations since World War II.” Certainly, the passing of the senator whose life story will dominate the news until he is buried at his alma mater, the Naval Academy, on Sunday, September 2 leaves America’s interventionists without their greatest champion. o one around has the prestige or media following of McCain. nd the cause he championed, compulsive intervention in foreign quarrels to face down dictators and bring democrats to power, appears to be a cause…Continue Reading

Tear Off The Scab, Heal The Wound

September 4, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on Tear Off The Scab, Heal The Wound

By CHRISTOPHER MANION The statement released by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on August 25, reprinted in its entirety in this issue, is required reading. The fallout (yes, fallout, because it was a devastating blast) still continues. Predictions? Alas, we have entered a new stage of what Msgr. George Kelly called “The Battle for the American Church” forty years ago. Only now the battle is worldwide, and all cards are on the table, turning face-up, one at a time. When Pope Francis gave his blessing at his audience on August 29, he was met with chants of “Viganò! Viganò!” This is simply unprecedented. And so is the continuing rage that followed the release of the report of the Pennsylvania attorney general…Continue Reading

In Trying Times . . . Remembering Leon Bloy

September 3, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on In Trying Times . . . Remembering Leon Bloy

By PEGGY MOEN In 1901, Jacques Maritain and Raissa Oumansoff made a suicide pact. Both were students at the Sorbonne, living in a world that was a “spiritual desert,” in the words of the late Michael Novak (Crisis, March 24, 2016). Novak explained: “In a horrifying pact, they swore together to give themselves one more year to find some meaning in life. If that search failed, they promised to commit suicide together. The Maritains seem to have argued themselves into this decision much as Albert Camus was later to argue in The Myth of Sisyphus. If human life is absurd, then the only way to give it meaning is to give at least one act in it one’s own meaning. One…Continue Reading

It’s The Homosexual Clergy, Stupid

September 2, 2018 Frontpage Comments Off on It’s The Homosexual Clergy, Stupid

By SHAUN KENNEY Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wis., has finally broken the dam, calling out the pederasty crisis as a symptom of the “Velvet Mafia” that has gripped the Catholic hierarchy for the better part of five decades — not just in America but across Latin America and even the Vatican itself. Disappointingly, the response from Cardinals Wuerl, O’Malley, and Cupich and even Pope Francis is lukewarm at best, blaming the pederasty scandal on “clericalism” rather than homosexual priests preying upon physically mature yet mentally immature young men and seminarians. Here’s what galls me the most. Before a man can become a priest, he places his hands into those of his bishop and is asked by his superior whether…Continue Reading