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An Enlightening Fable . . . Ten Reasons Why Christianity Won’t Get Off the Ground

February 17, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on An Enlightening Fable . . . Ten Reasons Why Christianity Won’t Get Off the Ground

By DONALD DeMARCO (Editor’s Note: The following satire, written by “Marcus Tullius Erronius,” purports to show why Christianity is unrealistic. In a coming issue, an essay by Dr. DeMarco will explain why Christianity is realistic, after all.) + + + To my esteemed Senator Maximus Perturbius: I have completed my research and evaluation of this boorish band of vagabonds called Christians. I am happy to report that Rome has nothing to fear from this motley religious sect. The following ten reasons make it only too evident that Christianity will never get off the ground, let alone flourish. I could have provided more than ten reasons, but you know what affection we Romans have for the number ten. Suffice to say…Continue Reading

Migration Revisited

February 16, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on Migration Revisited

By JUDE DOUGHERTY Migration is a characteristic of the human race. Man moves, and then moves again, for a thousand reasons: floods, famine, conquest, persecution and subjugation, economic opportunity. Anthropologists tell us that the earliest traces of human activity show evidence of people coming, planting, building, and then vanishing, perhaps to some better place, taking their culture with them and leaving evidence of it behind them. Perhaps every migration is different, but the hope for something better appears common to them all. Once over lunch in Buenos Aires I asked my host Guido Soaki Ramos, “Where are your people from?” “Tucuman,” he replied. “I know that, but everyone who is not what we call a Native American is from some…Continue Reading

Catholic High Schools And Sports

February 15, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on Catholic High Schools And Sports

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK M.P., a home-schooling mother, writes to comment upon the November 12 edition of First Teachers, in which another reader, S.M., criticized the emphasis on sports in many Catholic high schools. S.M. observed that “many Catholic schools have evolved primarily to support athletics, with academics becoming secondary.” M.P. agrees: “Many people today behave as if the education model we use for public schooling, and by extension private and parochial schooling, is the only way in which to educate children. The school has become the idol of American parents. Everything revolves around the school. Whatever the school says is done. School is no longer an extension of the family. It has become instead the center of the family.…Continue Reading

Candidate Brings Abortion Horror To U.S. Living Rooms

February 14, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on Candidate Brings Abortion Horror To U.S. Living Rooms

By REY FLORES A couple of weeks ago, I told you about pro-life Democratic presidential candidate Henry Hewes and his campaign to place as many controversial pro-life TV ads in American living rooms as possible. So far, Hewes managed to stir things up in the New Hampshire primaries where his ad was run locally during the national broadcast of Good Morning America the day before the elections. Never had local ABC affiliate WMUR received as many complaints about any ad in their history. The Hewes campaign, however, has gotten some positive responses by pro-lifers in that state. Viewers, mostly parents, complained directly to the television station while others vented their anger directly at Hewes on his Facebook page. Most of…Continue Reading

Snack-Happy Doritos Baby . . . May Give Cultural Clue About End Of Abortion, Even If Candidates Dither

February 13, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on Snack-Happy Doritos Baby . . . May Give Cultural Clue About End Of Abortion, Even If Candidates Dither

By DEXTER DUGGAN A strong clue about the future of permissive abortion in the United States probably occurred two days before the February 9 New Hampshire primary election, the second stop on the 2016 presidential candidates’ pilgrimage to receive the voters’ verdicts. Whether the voters end up being misled by certain hopefuls’ pro-life pledges, the bigger cultural clue on abortion occurred during the typically memorable commercials for Super Bowl 50 on February 7. A preborn baby on ultrasound supposedly grabbed for Doritos snack chips. Some of the most effective commercials may highlight a surprising, improbable turn in common, everyday life — something startlingly unexpected when you just order pizza, or fix the kids’ breakfast. This time, the common, everyday event…Continue Reading

Marco And The Atheist

February 12, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on Marco And The Atheist

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK Marco Rubio’s rise in the polls and unexpectedly strong showing in the Iowa caucuses is being attributed by most commentators to his performance in the Republican debate the previous week. Frank Luntz’s questioning of a panel of Iowa Republicans on Fox News immediately after the debate revealed a dramatic change of opinion about Rubio based on what they saw. There is something else that is being pointed to, however: a YouTube video that circulated in the weeks before the caucuses, one that featured Rubio engaged in an earnest discussion with a young atheist at one of his campaign rallies. It is said to have made a big impression on Iowa voters, especially Iowa’s evangelicals. I know…Continue Reading

Dr. Gerster Dies . . . Pro-Life Pioneer Helped Lay Foundation That The Young Build On Today

February 11, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on Dr. Gerster Dies . . . Pro-Life Pioneer Helped Lay Foundation That The Young Build On Today

By DEXTER DUGGAN SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — A leading pro-life legislator in the U.S. House of Representatives attributed his position today to the influence of the woman whose funeral he had just attended in this Phoenix suburb. Cong. Trent Franks (R., Ariz.) told The Wanderer that a speech given about 37 years ago by a national pro-life leader of that time, Carolyn Gerster, MD, “changed the direction of my life.” Just after Gerster’s February 5 funeral at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, Franks said that her talk at a Dallas gathering “moved me so deeply that I became committed to that cause ever since….It’s very unlikely I would be in Congress or carrying the nation’s major pro-life bills” without…Continue Reading

Justice And Mercy: Complementary Virtues

February 10, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on Justice And Mercy: Complementary Virtues

By LAWRENCE P. GRAYSON The Pope has declared this year to be a Jubilee of Mercy. This is not meant to be an opportunity to shed the punishment for our sins so that we can continue uninhibited in our lifestyles. This is not a spiritual “get out of jail free” card. We still are responsible to a just God for our sins. Justice and mercy are complementary virtues. Perfectly blended in God, they are necessary here on Earth for a fair and harmonious society. Justice creates order and adherence to obligations. It ensures that all obtain what they are due, whether that be the good they have earned or the punishment they have warranted. It is impartial and objective. Without…Continue Reading

Restoring The Sacred . . . What “Ash Wednesday Catholics” Can Teach Us About Catholic Worship

February 9, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on Restoring The Sacred . . . What “Ash Wednesday Catholics” Can Teach Us About Catholic Worship

By JAMES MONTI Ash Wednesday is coming very early this year — February 10. And with it will come the annual return of the “Ash Wednesday Catholics.” We are all familiar with the phenomenon that on Ash Wednesday the Catholic population of almost any given place seems to swell beyond measure as churches that normally see little more than a modest attendance at Sunday and weekday Masses are suddenly flooded with unfamiliar faces all in search of ashes for their foreheads. No sooner do these visitors receive their tiny portion of dust than they disappear, largely not to be seen or heard from in church for the other 364 days of the year — although some will put in one…Continue Reading

The Academic Roots Of The President’s Radicalism

February 8, 2016 Frontpage Comments Off on The Academic Roots Of The President’s Radicalism

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK I was convinced that the liberal critics were going to jump all over Steve Forbes for his January 18 editorial in Forbes magazine. So far, I haven’t come across that criticism. Maybe it has taken place and I missed it. Maybe it is yet to come. I thought that the critics were going to go at Forbes hammer and tong for describing President Obama’s worldview as one in which the “U.S. has been a force of evil in the world,” and in which the “smaller our role, the better. Most anything bad happening has at its source American and European colonialism.” Forbes contends this view has created in Obama a “mental construct increasingly at odds with…Continue Reading