Friday 1st December 2023

Home » Frontpage » Recent Articles:

Visiting Boys Town… Where A World Of Care For Troubled Youngsters Rose On Nebraska Plains

September 26, 2023 Frontpage Comments Off on Visiting Boys Town… Where A World Of Care For Troubled Youngsters Rose On Nebraska Plains

By DEXTER DUGGAN By DEXTER DUGGAN OMAHA — An Irish-born priest in Phoenix once recalled that when he and a young friend from the seminary in the Emerald Isle were told they were being assigned to Arizona, they got out a map. One of them was being sent to Phoenix, the other young priest to Tucson.The two cities didn’t look far apart. The priests decided that on their days off, one of them could bike over to visit the other. They hadn’t noticed the scale of mileage on the map. Phoenix and Tucson are about 116 miles apart, hardly a distance for a morning’s quick bike ride, especially on a summer desert day.Following God’s will can bring surprises, as also…Continue Reading

Pope Francis Should Just “Move On”

September 22, 2023 Frontpage Comments Off on Pope Francis Should Just “Move On”

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK Pope Francis said, “Move on.” I say he might want to follow his own advice.Those were his words after he learned that some American Catholics reacted with dismay when he criticized, condemned and cursed them on the international stage provided him by one of his in-flight press conferences that have become a feature of his international travel on return legs to Rome.Faithful Catholics in the Synodal Church need to just “move on”, while those who defy settled matters of faith and morals are given red-carpet and “Who am I to judge” carte blanche treatment. Bizarre to say the least. Just another in the long series of inversions under which Catholics have had to suffer in…Continue Reading

Love Is At The Heart Of Every Virtue

September 19, 2023 Frontpage Comments Off on Love Is At The Heart Of Every Virtue

By DONALD DeMARCO The word “virtue” is derived from the Latin vir, meaning man. It was once believed that virtue was virility (or manliness) and nothing more. Virtue, then, was the sole province of the male and was most clearly evident when men displayed courage on the battlefield. Virtue did not apply to women not only because of their sex, but, by and large, because they did not go to war.Plutarch (c. AD 46 to AD 120) disagreed with the prevailing notion that only men could be virtuous. In his book, Mulierum Virtutem (The Virtues of Women), he sought to demonstrate that virtue applies equally to women as well as to men. If virtue belonged to those who displayed courage…Continue Reading

The Maritains And The Perennial Philosophy

September 15, 2023 Frontpage Comments Off on The Maritains And The Perennial Philosophy

By JOHN YOUNG Two young people sat in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris and reached a decision: If they could not find a meaning in life, they would commit suicide while still young. They were students at the Sorbonne at the beginning of the twentieth century, and the philosophy they encountered there seemed to lead to the conclusion that life is meaningless.Their names were Raissa Oumansoff and Jacques Maritain. They found what they were looking for in Catholicism, particularly as manifested in the lives of the saints. Jacques Maritain later became one of the best philosophers in the twentieth century, an eminent follower of St. Thomas Aquinas.What would have become of them had they never escaped from the materialism…Continue Reading

What Catholic Education Is Really About

September 14, 2023 Frontpage Comments Off on What Catholic Education Is Really About

By PAUL KRAUSE There are many success stories in Catholic education. Many schools that were on the verge of closing turned to faithful religious education and a humanities curriculum which brought them new life. The disastrous policies of closing schools and the virtual learning initiatives during COVID have also revealed that Catholic schools remain superior to their peers in all measurable metrics. With the start of a new school year and a growing renaissance in Christian education, we must understand what the heart of Catholic education is really about.Catholics must remain vigilant that their education is more than just an academic alternative to failing public schools. Catholic education must always remain Catholic in orientation, focused on the love of God…Continue Reading

The Sign Of The Cross: The Earliest Sacramental

September 13, 2023 Frontpage Comments Off on The Sign Of The Cross: The Earliest Sacramental

By JAMES MONTI The concept of making the Cross upon which Our Lord died the ultimate symbol of His entire mission of our redemption came from the lips of Our Lord Himself, for it is implicit in His command that if we are to be His true disciples, we must take up our own crosses and follow Him. St. Paul invokes the image of the Cross directly:“But far be it for me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14). The expansion of the invocation of the Cross into all aspects of a Christian’s life arose quite early in the history…Continue Reading

Like Former Singers . . . Today’s Politics One Day Will Fade Away, But They’re Hot Topics Now

September 12, 2023 Frontpage Comments Off on Like Former Singers . . . Today’s Politics One Day Will Fade Away, But They’re Hot Topics Now

By DEXTER DUGGAN PHOENIX — On September 2 blogger and former Wanderer columnist Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, also known as “Fr. Z,” posted a video of the major twentieth-century rock group “The Who” in its young days, informally performing The Kids Are Alright in the open air, in a park by a lake.This may have been London’s Hyde Park in the mid-1960s. Boaters casually floating by in the background, out for a little recreation, are captured on film forever in that moment as the rock group sings and plays, without microphones evident.The acoustics we actually hear may have been dubbed in later because the sound is firm and clear, more of studio quality in the ’60s than open-air.“The Who” members appear…Continue Reading

Getting The Troops Ready For Battle

September 11, 2023 Frontpage Comments Off on Getting The Troops Ready For Battle

By DEACON MIKE MANNO Any of you who have listened to my radio program on the Iowa Catholic Radio Network know that we always sign off with the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. We do that because we know the nature of our program, Faith On Trial, exposes listeners to the battle that is waging between the forces of Our Lord and those of, as C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape would say, Our Father Below.I’ve mentioned this in a column before, but I think it is notable enough to repeat: The Prayer to St. Michael was an outgrowth of an interior locution that Pope Leo XIII had on the morning of October 13, 1884, which, incidentally, was 33 years to the…Continue Reading

Dem Foes Try To Eat Trump Alive . . . But He Grows New Limbs

September 10, 2023 Frontpage Comments Off on Dem Foes Try To Eat Trump Alive . . . But He Grows New Limbs

By DEXTER DUGGAN “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse!”Through and through, that’s an exaggeration. No one believes that even a famished person could do that for a meal.But what if an emaciated person not only did it, but also ordered up a second horse, and then a third and cleaned his plate — or whatever eating surface he needed to accommodate that size of repast. Only Clydesdales on the menu, please, no little ponies.Look there, even the hooves and horseshoes went down the hatch.That would be overkill for sure. Or at least remarkable overfill. It’s not only unreasonable but impossible that such enormous consumption would be demanded to solve the problem.In a way that’s the equivalent of what’s…Continue Reading

School Unions Dig In . . . “We Want Your Kids!”

September 9, 2023 Frontpage Comments Off on School Unions Dig In . . . “We Want Your Kids!”

By CHRISTOPHER MANION John Swett founded California’s oldest school union, the California Teachers Association (CTA), 160 years ago. Mr. Swett, a Unitarian and a diehard anti-Catholic, is famous for declaring that “children belong to the state, not to the parents.”The CTA Union still runs the California Democrat Party. So true to form, this week California’s top law enforcement officer “took a school district to court for the alleged crime of notifying parents when their kids claim to identify as transgender,” the Daily Signal reports.“That school district has gone out of its way to promote mental health and suicide prevention, and it has resources devoted to helping ‘LGBTQIA+ youth,’ but California Attorney General Rob Bonta has claimed that the parental notification…Continue Reading