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“Catholic Majority” On High Court… Helps Put Nation In Danger Through Lawless Decisions

July 8, 2015 Frontpage Comments Off on “Catholic Majority” On High Court… Helps Put Nation In Danger Through Lawless Decisions

By DEXTER DUGGAN As the workweek concluded on June 26, national radio talk host Hugh Hewitt declared it to be a week “pivotal in the life of the country.” On two successive days, June 25 and 26, the Catholic-majority U.S. Supreme Court had issued two utterly baseless, lawless decisions affecting everyone’s life here, and what the rest of the world sees as the example set by America. Especially dangerous was the court’s obvious assumption that its mere majority vote was enough to compel national obedience — even though the court’s opinions were clearly, demonstrably false, and contrived. With our basic liberties and rights limited by such deceits, a national alarm must be sounded that this court must firmly be brought…Continue Reading

Restoring The Sacred . . . What A Time-Honored Military Rite Can Teach Us About The Liturgy

July 7, 2015 Frontpage Comments Off on Restoring The Sacred . . . What A Time-Honored Military Rite Can Teach Us About The Liturgy

By JAMES MONTI (Editor’s Note: Restoring the Sacred will be a semi-regular feature in The Wanderer, written by James Monti, who recently covered the Sacra Liturgia USA 2015 Conference and also wrote a two-part critique of the screen adaptation of Wolf Hall for us. Monti wrote The King’s Good Servant but God’s First: The Life and Writings of Saint Thomas More [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997].) + + + During his eight-year pontificate Pope Benedict XVI imparted to the Church a rich and enduring legacy, at the heart of which was his endeavor to restore a sense of the sacred to the liturgy, the supreme expression of his famed “hermeneutic of continuity,” whereby, “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains…Continue Reading

More On Forgiving Student Loans

July 6, 2015 Frontpage Comments Off on More On Forgiving Student Loans

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK In the May 7 edition of First Teachers, a reader named J.M. offered a suggestion for how the country can extricate itself from what many see as the next financial crisis awaiting us: the likelihood that college graduates will default on the massive student loans that they are carrying, leaving taxpayers with the bill. In an op-ed in The New York Times on Sunday, June 7 entitled “Why I Defaulted on my Student Loans,” the writer, Lee Siegel, explains why he did just that, encouraging others to do the same. Writes Siegel, “As difficult as it has been, I’ve never looked back. The millions of young people today, who collectively owe over $1 trillion in loans,…Continue Reading

Signs Of The Times

July 5, 2015 Frontpage Comments Off on Signs Of The Times

By REY FLORES They say that when it rains, it pours. That couldn’t be truer for our nation. Within 48 hours, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that the farce that is Obamacare should continue and that the federal government could force states to accept the abomination that is “gay marriage.” For Christian America, it sure seems like the bottom of the ninth inning, down by a seemingly insurmountable five runs with two outs and no light at the end of the tunnel — but again, we all know how the story ends, so all hope is never lost. To top it all off, I was laid off from my position as director of outreach at the American…Continue Reading

Pope Francis And The Shadow Magisterium

July 4, 2015 Frontpage Comments Off on Pope Francis And The Shadow Magisterium

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK I continue to get letters from readers unhappy with what they see as Pope Francis’ left-wing biases. Some of these critics strike me as over-the-top, but not all. Some deserve to be taken seriously. My response to the charges of the latter group is to not jump the gun, to not assume that the Pope is going to make some major change in the Church’s teachings on issues such as same-sex marriage, when the Pope’s instruction is likely to be far more nuanced. But I will concede this point: There are those on the left, both within and outside the Church, who are seizing the moment of Pope Francis’ popularity and what they see as his…Continue Reading

Sacra Liturgia USA 2015 Conference… A Solemn Mass And Procession Conclude An Inspiring Experience

July 3, 2015 Frontpage Comments Off on Sacra Liturgia USA 2015 Conference… A Solemn Mass And Procession Conclude An Inspiring Experience

By JAMES MONTI Day Four of Sacra Liturgia USA 2015 (Thursday, June 4) in New York City brought to the podium five more distinguished speakers of the liturgical renewal movement and climaxed in a magnificent Solemn Mass and eucharistic procession through the streets of Manhattan that drew the four-day conference to a highly uplifting conclusion. The exquisite liturgical order and precision of these rites were wrought by hours of preparation and planning on the part of Sacra Liturgia founder Dom Alcuin Reid, a consummate master of ceremonies as well as one of the world’s pre-eminent liturgical scholars. But before turning to the events of Day Four, two more addresses from Day Three (June 3) deserve particular attention. In a presentation…Continue Reading

Blindness And Blindness

July 2, 2015 Frontpage Comments Off on Blindness And Blindness

By ALICE von HILDEBRAND There is a note of dignity and poignancy in a blind man, who early in his life, becomes aware that he is deprived of the unfathomable gift of sight, and that there is a world of beauty totally closed to him. Already as a small child, he must realize that he suffers from a deficiency and that his daily life will be a struggle, relying only on hearing and touching to face the problems of daily life. I leave aside the case of those who lose their sight later in life, and who carry the heavy cross of no longer perceiving the beauty of the sun, of a star-studded sky, of spring, or contemplating a beloved…Continue Reading

No Matter The Rung On Economic Ladder . . . Temptations Abound This Side Of Heaven’s Gate

July 1, 2015 Frontpage Comments Off on No Matter The Rung On Economic Ladder . . . Temptations Abound This Side Of Heaven’s Gate

By DEXTER DUGGAN Imagine a man is told that if he’ll just do a total fast for three minutes — no fluids or solids at all for 180 seconds — then he can eat and drink whatever he wants, whenever he wants, however much he wants for the rest of his natural life, and never become overweight or look like a glutton to anyone. Who among us food-based beings could reject such an offer? However, with a bit of revision, that’s the sort of bargain God has extended to everyone, but many people have trouble accepting it — or else turn it down. If you’ll just repent of your follies and follow my ways for your lifetime of 20 or…Continue Reading

Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic . . . 1965: The Dawn Of Our Current Age

June 30, 2015 Frontpage Comments Off on Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic . . . 1965: The Dawn Of Our Current Age

By STEPHEN M. KRASON (Editor’s Note: Stephen M. Krason’s Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic column appears monthly [sometimes bimonthly] in Crisis. He is professor of political science and legal studies and associate director of the Veritas Center for Ethics in Public Life at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is also cofounder and president of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists. Among his books is The Transformation of the American Democratic Republic [Transaction Publishers, 2012], and most recently two edited volumes: Child Abuse, Family Rights, and the Child Protective System [Scarecrow Press, 2013] and The Crisis of Religious Liberty [Rowman & Littlefield, 2014]. This column originally appeared in Crisismagazine.com. All rights reserved.) + + + Different writers here and there…Continue Reading

Topic Teaching In Finland

June 29, 2015 Frontpage Comments Off on Topic Teaching In Finland

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK My guess is that many readers of this column find their hackles going up whenever someone in the education establishment advocates a reform. I know mine do. We have lived through too many fads that have come and gone — from the open classroom to team teaching to schools without walls to open book tests — to not be on guard. It may surprise some readers to learn that there are many teachers who react the same. There was a wisecrack that made the rounds in the public high school where I taught for about 30 years whenever an “innovative teaching technique” was proposed: “Nothing works, so they keep trying something new.” But, while it is…Continue Reading