Friday 19th April 2024

Home » Frontpage » Recent Articles:

Casting Your Ballot: A Moral Act

October 13, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on Casting Your Ballot: A Moral Act

By LAWRENCE P. GRAYSON Next month, we will have the opportunity to vote for the people who will lead this nation. The outcome will significantly affect our lives — and those of our children and grandchildren — for decades. The challenges before the nation are serious and emotion laden. They range from abortion to immigration, from redefining marriage to adequate health care, from freedom of conscience to the national debt. All have profound moral implications. Thus, as Catholics, each of us has an obligation to cast our ballot with a faith-formed conscience, aware of the teachings of our Church and of the views of those who seek to represent us. We must evaluate the candidates’ promises, policy positions, and party…Continue Reading

Philanthropist Simon . . . Speaks On Research Findings About Helping Catholic Life Thrive

October 12, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on Philanthropist Simon . . . Speaks On Research Findings About Helping Catholic Life Thrive

By DEXTER DUGGAN Eucharistic adoration is a simple but powerful instrument to invigorate a parish, Catholic philanthropist, businessman, and educator William E. Simon Jr. told an audience at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington, D.C. “When the pastor introduced Perpetual Adoration . . . attendance skyrockets and spirituality grows,” Simon said on September 30 as he discussed findings in his recently released book, Great Catholic Parishes: How Four Essential Practices Make Them Thrive (Ave Maria Press, $17.95, paperback). This finding “really warmed my heart,” said Simon, explaining that a parish doesn’t “need a big budget to do it, you don’t need a lot of people to do it. There’s no reason you can’t do it….You can just announce…Continue Reading

The Education Of A Catholic Journalist

October 11, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on The Education Of A Catholic Journalist

By PAUL LIKOUDIS (Editor’s Note: The article below first appeared in the March 1998 issue of the Canadian periodical Challenge, and is reprinted here with permission. All rights reserved.) + + + Twenty years ago this fall, just a month after Karol Cardinal Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II, I began a career in Catholic journalism. Whereas the new Pope was fully prepared for his calling, I landed into this work completely unprepared and unaware of the intensely exciting drama at play in the Catholic Church. Truth be told, I heard the news of the new Pope while sitting at a bar in very northern Maine, directly opposite St. John, New Brunswick. After a hard day’s work putting in guardrails…Continue Reading

How Laity Can Help Bishops . . . Improve Their Thinking About The Election

October 10, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on How Laity Can Help Bishops . . . Improve Their Thinking About The Election

By JEFF KOLOZE (Editor’s Note: Dr. Jeff Koloze is president of Koloze Consultants, which works with faculty who wish to promote their pro-life research. Although retired, he still enjoys teaching English grammar, rhetoric, research paper, and literature courses to learn how contemporary students negotiate contemporary controversial issues.) + + + The September/October 2016 issue of Northeast Ohio Catholic, “the magazine of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland [Ohio],” carried an interesting article about voting, one section of which immediately got my attention. Titled “How to Cast a Vote When Neither Choice Is Right?,” I had to read this section first to see what the official organ of one diocese had to say about the matter. The article states: “This reality underscores…Continue Reading

Nothing New In Dems’ Low Blow . . . Kaine, Clinton Debates Dig Up Scare Tactic From Half-Century Ago

October 9, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on Nothing New In Dems’ Low Blow . . . Kaine, Clinton Debates Dig Up Scare Tactic From Half-Century Ago

By DEXTER DUGGAN PHOENIX — When 20th-century conservative standard-bearer Barry Goldwater began his campaign as the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, he went to the steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse, about an hour and a half north of Phoenix and a mile high, up in the mountain town of Prescott, Ariz. The courthouse in Prescott had been Goldwater’s traditional location to kick off his previous U.S. Senate races. When 2016 GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump made an early October Arizona speech, he went a few miles to the east, to Prescott Valley, a separate town with a population about the same size as Prescott’s, also estimated at about 42,000 people as of last year. Trump warned a packed auditorium on…Continue Reading

My Dark Night Of The Soul

October 8, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on My Dark Night Of The Soul

By REY FLORES Most of us have heard about St. Teresa of Calcutta’s “dark night of the soul” when even this very holy soul began to have her doubts about God and had feelings of abandonment and spiritual darkness. In no way am I comparing myself to a saint, but after a few hard weeks of daily challenges which tested my faith, I believe that I came pretty close to quitting being Catholic. I told my spiritual adviser that life had become too difficult and that I felt I didn’t have the strength, courage, or desire to remain being Catholic. He proceeded to tell me about how he and another one of his spiritual sons had once taken a walk…Continue Reading

Aborting The Trump Revolution

October 7, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on Aborting The Trump Revolution

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN In taking that $915 million loss in 1995, and carrying it forward to shelter future income, Donald Trump did nothing wrong. By both his family and his business, he did everything right. In a famous 1947 dissent, Judge Learned Hand wrote: “[T]here is nothing sinister in so arranging one’s affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. . . . Everybody does so, rich or poor; and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands: Taxes are enforced exactions, not voluntary contributions. To demand more in the name of morals is mere cant.” This writer’s father spent his career as a tax accountant who studied tax codes…Continue Reading

Is Charlotte Our Future?

October 6, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on Is Charlotte Our Future?

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN (Editor’s Note: Pat Buchanan posted this message at his website: “After the death of a great lady and great conservative Phyllis Schlafly last month, I regret to relate that another old and loyal ally and friendly reviewer of Buchanan books in The Wanderer and other publications, Paul Likoudis, passed away. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, September 28 at St. Mary’s of the Lake Church in Watkins Glen, New York. Deeply schooled in Catholic morality and theology, Paul stood by and lived by his beliefs. Our prayers go out for him and his family — Pat Buchanan.”) + + + Celebrating the racial diversity of the Charlotte protesters last…Continue Reading

Booklet To Inform Catholic Voters . . . May Be Losing Some Of Its Focus

October 5, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on Booklet To Inform Catholic Voters . . . May Be Losing Some Of Its Focus

By DEXTER DUGGAN PHOENIX — While the Democratic Party positioned itself deeper within the Culture of Death as years passed, party leaders assigned priorities to issues. Promoting permissive abortion was awarded a key place. Democrats chose their “non-negotiable” standards to insist upon. This caused difficulties for voters who thought it more important to oppose the massive destruction of unborn babies than to, for example, press for a higher minimum wage. By way of comparison, would the Ku Klux Klan make itself more morally acceptable if, under the shade of its lynching trees, it served free lunches to the poor? A leftist strategy sometimes called the “seamless garment” emerged, seeking falsely to equate the issues so as to mitigate a politician’s…Continue Reading

Not Normal To Be Normal

October 4, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on Not Normal To Be Normal

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK It’s confusing, isn’t it? There was a time not that long ago when almost everyone in the country would have responded to the demands of LGBTQ activists with a dismissive shrug and the comment, “It’s not normal.” I am not exaggerating for emphasis. As recently as 30 years ago, outside of some radical circles, no one would have felt any need to refute demands for same-sex marriages and transgender locker room rights with a patient and reasoned explanation. The reaction would have been, “That’s crazy. It’s not normal.” Case closed. This has been a cultural change of great dimensions. Nowadays if someone were to say, “It’s not normal,” or “it’s unnatural,” in response to a photo…Continue Reading