Friday 13th December 2019

Home » Frontpage » Recent Articles:

Becket Says… Religious Freedom Survives Culture Wars

December 2, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on Becket Says… Religious Freedom Survives Culture Wars

By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD Readers of this column have come across the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty numerous times during the past few years. Becket is a leading public interest legal and educational organization dedicated to protect the free expression of all faiths. It has been instrumental in numerous legal battles, including representation of the Little Sisters of the Poor in the ongoing legal battle over whether or not the nuns can be forced to provide contraceptives and abortifacients for their employees. Late last month Becket released the results of its first religious freedom index to track trends on American views of religious freedom. It is being used to measure trends in six dimensions of religious freedom. It is…Continue Reading

Roger Stone, Jeffrey Epstein . . . And The Crackup Of America’s Leadership

December 1, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on Roger Stone, Jeffrey Epstein . . . And The Crackup Of America’s Leadership

By TUCKER CARLSON AND NEIL PATEL Roger Stone was recently convicted in federal court on seven felony charges, stemming from the since-closed Russian collusion investigation. Stone’s main crime was lying to Congress about who he had, or had not, spoken to about Russia. By the time Stone’s trial began in Washington, nobody was talking about WikiLeaks anymore. Nobody cared. Yet prosecutors continued as if it were 2017. For lying about something now irrelevant, they argued that Roger Stone should spend up to 50 years in prison, the rest of his life. At the very moment prosecutors were making that case — that Stone’s misstatements ought to be a death penalty offense — Cong. Adam Schiff was busy lying to the…Continue Reading

The Contraception Conundrum

November 30, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on The Contraception Conundrum

By CHRISTOPHER MANION In recent years, surveys have indicated that a large majority of Catholics approve of contraception. Apparently many bishops don’t consider that a problem — at least they don’t spend so much preaching and teaching time on the subject as they do about guns, global warming, and other items on the Democrats’ policy agenda. Now the question arises, what would happen if our bishops and priests made teaching Humanae Vitae their truly first priority? How would the laity react? I’m sure the bishops have asked that question as well. Is our possible reaction that’s making them reluctant? A few years back, in Adam and Eve After the Pill (Ignatius Press), social critic Mary Eberstadt identified a pathology that…Continue Reading

Thought, A Journal Revisited

November 29, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on Thought, A Journal Revisited

By JUDE P. DOUGHERTY Thought was the title of a highly respected Fordham University quarterly, published from 1926 to 1992. During that period, its website tells us, it published 267 issues containing over 5,000 English language contributions by philosophers, theologians, literary intellectuals, and others. Among its well-known contributors were Dietrich von Hildebrand, Bernard Lonergan, Jacques Maritain, Walker Percy, and Karl Rahner. The journal was named appropriately for it carried essays that could not be classified strictly as theology or as philosophy, given the nature of their subject matter, and others that fell short of the scholarly apparatus demanded by technical journals such as The Modern Schoolman or Speculum. As a student, I valued my subscription and many years later I…Continue Reading

The Angelic Warfare Confraternity… Protecting Ourselves From The Modern Deluge Of Immoral Material

November 28, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on The Angelic Warfare Confraternity… Protecting Ourselves From The Modern Deluge Of Immoral Material

By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY One of the biggest problems now confronting Catholics — men and boys in particular, but also women and girls to a lesser extent — is the explosion in the availability of pornography. It’s not so long ago that if someone wanted to view pornography they had to go to some effort, be it buying magazines, or videos, or whatever. But now, pornography of all sorts is openly available on the Internet and only a mouse click away. Apart from that, quite often material which if not fully pornographic is at least salacious or indecent can be seen on TV, and more so in movies; and there is also the matter of billboards and advertising generally, as…Continue Reading

University Curricula Are Changing (And Not For The Better)

November 27, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on University Curricula Are Changing (And Not For The Better)

By SHAUN KENNEY Keep your eyes out for a new trend on college campuses across America. No — I am not talking about music or Title IX tribunals or any newfangled fad. Rather, a curriculum change is coming that we should collectively lift our eyes toward and begin asking tough questions. There is a dirty secret among academics that many of the “soft sciences” cannot replicate their studies. Thus whenever you read an article arguing “scientists say,” you should reasonably be skeptical of the claims. Eggs are good for you, bad for you, good for you again…the same is even truer with sociological and psychological claims. In short, barely 1 in 3 of these studies can be replicated. Replication is…Continue Reading

Napoleon And The Pope

November 26, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on Napoleon And The Pope

By JOE SIXPACK One of the most mighty rulers of the world was the first Napoleon. All of Europe was at his feet. The year 1804 was set for his coronation as emperor, and he invited Pope Pius VII to do the crowning. He tried to persuade the Pontiff to move the papal throne to Paris. With high-sounding language and energetic gestures, the conqueror set before the Holy Father the advantages of such a change. “How well you act comedy,” the Pope remarked. Angered by this remark, Napoleon snatched up a drawing of St. Peter’s Basilica at Rome, tore it to bits and exclaimed, “This is what I will do to the Church! I will completely crush her.” “Now you…Continue Reading

The USCCB Fall Assembly… What Were The 69 Thinking?

November 25, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on The USCCB Fall Assembly… What Were The 69 Thinking?

By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD This week is Thanksgiving and my original intention was to write an uplifting column about those things for which we are all thankful. But, as I prepared, something happened involving an issue that is close to my heart and thus “uplifting” went out the window. I’m speaking of an issue that came before the bishops at this month’s meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in Baltimore. It concerned the bishops’ document, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizens. At issue was a letter based on the document which stated that abortion, the slaughter of the unborn, remains the “pre-eminent” social justice issue. Personally, I didn’t see a problem with that. I had been…Continue Reading

A Book Review… Healthy Marriages: Persevere In The Vows Made To God

November 24, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on A Book Review… Healthy Marriages: Persevere In The Vows Made To God

By REY FLORES Habits for a Healthy Marriage: A Handbook for Catholic Couples by Richard Fitzgibbons (Ignatius: 2019), 280 pages; paperback and e-book. Order at Ignatius.com, or call 1-800-651-1531. In today’s throwaway culture, we are witnessing an increasing and alarming rate of divorce among Catholics. This is truly a grave scandal and tragedy. The one institution of society that all else is based upon can now be just some unimportant, frivolous formality and ritual where spouses who tire of each other can walk away, children be damned. Thankfully, we have people like Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons who is the founder of The Institute for Marital Healing and the author of the new book, Habits for a Healthy Marriage: A Handbook for…Continue Reading

New Sins For Old

November 23, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on New Sins For Old

By CHRISTOPHER MANION Anyone who’s been on the front lines in the battle for life knows how often the laity have had to go it alone. It’s not that America’s bishops aren’t interested, it’s just that they’ve had more pressing priorities for the past fifty years. And business consultants will tell you that, if you haven’t finished priority number one, it’s likely that you’ll never get around to priority number two. Take contraception. In the 1960s, long before Humanae Vitae, the bishops’ conference decided not to oppose federal taxpayer support for programs that provided contraception and sterilization. Of course, it’s quite possible that many prelates didn’t really object to contraception at all. But the fact is clear: They were up…Continue Reading