Tuesday 20th August 2019

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Vladimir Putin And “The Good Pagan’s Failure”

July 30, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on Vladimir Putin And “The Good Pagan’s Failure”

By JUDE DOUGHERTY The Good Pagan’s Failure is the title of a book first published in 1939 by Rosalind Murray. It is an indictment of Western liberalism. Readers of a certain age will remember that Rosalind was the daughter of Gilbert Murray, the distinguished Oxford professor of Greek and Classical Studies, who in my youth was the object of compulsory study. For a time, Rosalind Murray was the wife of Arnold Toynbee, the celebrated author of the 12-volume A Study of History (1934-1961). Given the British literary circles in which she moved, Murray knew well the pagan mind of which she wrote. The pagan of her day was likely to be a philosophical materialist, an empiricist who denied a natural…Continue Reading

Blaine, Blaine, Go Away!

July 29, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on Blaine, Blaine, Go Away!

By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD It’s been a long time since I discussed the Blaine Amendments in this space. For those of you who are not familiar with them, let me take a moment to bring you up-to-date. The story goes back to 1875 when a wave of nativism and anti-Catholic bigotry was sweeping the country. President Grant publicly supported “free schools,” those supported by the government, but opposed using any government funds to support sectarian — read that Catholic — schools. In support of Grant, a former House speaker and then U.S. senator from Maine, James G. Blaine, introduced, as a joint resolution, a constitutional amendment to prevent any public aid to sectarian schools. The issue of the Blaine…Continue Reading

As 2020 Draws Closer . . . Will Trump Show Enough “Winning” To Win Voters Again?

July 28, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on As 2020 Draws Closer . . . Will Trump Show Enough “Winning” To Win Voters Again?

By DEXTER DUGGAN A year from now, the 2020 presidential election and other key ballot contests will be a little more than a dozen weeks distant on the calendar. Although the unexpected may intervene — as prognosticators must cautiously remind their audiences — President Trump and his seething Democrat foes had pretty clearly staked their positions for the campaign by midsummer 2019, two and a half years after he entered the White House. At least theoretically, it had been a miserable time for the Dems since the miserably corrupt Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, but they’ve done pretty well at getting key goals, despite being frustrated at fulfilling their fever dreams of Trump being pulled from the Rose Garden in…Continue Reading

Cardinal Mueller . . . A Powerful Defense Of Humanae Vitae’s Role In Church Teaching

July 27, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on Cardinal Mueller . . . A Powerful Defense Of Humanae Vitae’s Role In Church Teaching

By CHRISTOPHER MANION The Power of Truth: Gerhard Cardinal Mueller (Ignatius Press, ignatius.com, 1-800-651-1531; or $12.97 on Amazon). As we celebrate the 51st anniversary of the promulgation of Humanae Vitae, Gerhard Cardinal Mueller, the former prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, weighs in. His new book, The Power of Truth, is required reading. The book’s clarity and precision offers a breath of fresh air as it describes the nature of the Magisterium and Humanae Vitae’s distinctive place within it. The Church “can carry out her mission of leading people to God only if she puts the light that she received from the Lord not under a bushel basket but rather on the lampstand,” Mueller writes.…Continue Reading

Vincent Lambert… Euthanasia? Let ’Em Die

July 26, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on Vincent Lambert… Euthanasia? Let ’Em Die

By BARBARA SIMPSON (Editor’s Note: This column first appeared on WorldNetDaily, July 14, 2019.) + + + There are some names we all should know and the latest addition to the list is Vincent Lambert, a 42-year-old Frenchman who died July 11 while in a French hospital. He was denied food or fluids for more than nine days. Such a death is horrid and painful; but that didn’t matter to the medical staff, or to the lawyers and judges. Yes, the battle for his life went to the top French courts as well as the United Nations and the European Court of Human Rights. They denied the desperate pleas of Vincent’s family that he be treated. He was severely disabled…Continue Reading

Scheduled For Deportation . . . Lawbreakers Come To Aid Of Lawbreaking Aliens

July 25, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on Scheduled For Deportation . . . Lawbreakers Come To Aid Of Lawbreaking Aliens

By DEXTER DUGGAN PHOENIX — If no one knew for certain how many election precincts existed in the United States, the interests of ballot security and voting integrity would be among elements demanding an answer. Finding that answer would seem even more reasonable if other questions already were being addressed, such as whether voters with disabilities were accommodated and if the length of time the polls were open allowed for reasonable access. Yet when the Trump administration sought to determine the number of people holding U.S. citizenship during the upcoming census — which seems an entirely appropriate topic given the context — one might have thought the White House was demanding to intrude into ordering which sex could use which…Continue Reading

Silence In A Cluttered Age

July 24, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on Silence In A Cluttered Age

By SHAUN KENNEY For those who are into Catholic filmmaking, Into Great Silence has to be one of my favorites. The film centers among a monastery whose rule is strict and entirely unique. Filmmakers had to wait years before being allowed into the monastery to document the lives of these monks, many of whom struggle to adapt to the Benedictine Rule. With talk of married priests in the wake of the Amazon Synod in October, it is worth a discussion of the monastic tradition and why it is so important to the West — what it preserved and why its role is so very important in our postmodern age. St. Benedict’s Rule was an innovation of a sort, but it…Continue Reading

Brebeuf Prep Scandal . . . Exposes Jesuit Rejection Of Church Teaching

July 23, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on Brebeuf Prep Scandal . . . Exposes Jesuit Rejection Of Church Teaching

By MICHAEL ARATA “What’s the difference between a Jesuit and a Catholic?” That 1998 question-box submission in my wife’s Confirmation-prep class drew much laughter at the time, especially from the good and faithful assistant pastor who served as class adviser/answer man. But the question has continuing relevance now. The Society of Jesus, the Jesuits — once renowned worldwide for educational institutions of great intellectual and moral depth — became notorious instead for radical notions of “social justice” and “liberation theology.” (Observing similar aberrations at Saint Mary’s College, a local De La Salle Christian Brothers institution in northern California, my wife wrote editorially that “social justice has been transformed in left-wing Catholic circles from Christian charity to crypto-communism — taking ‘from…Continue Reading

Stay And Fight, Here’s Why… A Bishop Speaks To A Suffering Church

July 22, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on Stay And Fight, Here’s Why… A Bishop Speaks To A Suffering Church

By DEACON MIKE MANNO, JD So, what do you do about the scandals in the Church? Well, for most subscribers to this publication the answer is pretty clear: Church is home and we don’t intent to be run out of it. We may not like what has transpired, and while we have some qualms about some of the people running things, we believe in the institution. That’s fine as far as it goes. But how do you convince you children, family members, and friends who are verging on leaving to find another church (or worse, who are ready to join the chorus of the “nones,” those who subscribe to no faith) to stay. It’s easy to sit back and complain,…Continue Reading

Netroots Nation Vignette . . . Exposes The Doublethink Of Pro-Abort Political Correctness

July 21, 2019 Frontpage Comments Off on Netroots Nation Vignette . . . Exposes The Doublethink Of Pro-Abort Political Correctness

By DEXTER DUGGAN Planned Parenthood says abortion empowers women, but the unending bloodletting wasn’t powerful enough to save the short-lived presidency of its head Leana Wen, MD, who took over last November but whose womb-kicking assignment didn’t survive as long as the full course of a pregnancy. As permissive abortion faced new resistance from some state legislatures and the Trump administration, the PP board that surprisingly pushed Wen out prematurely on July 16 reportedly didn’t think she was taking the proper path to ensure the organization’s political success. But was it really Wen’s fault that she couldn’t package the mass slaughter that has edged into infanticide attractively enough in the public arena? Or had PP executives just been so fooled…Continue Reading