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Can America Fight A Thirty Years’ War?

October 13, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Can America Fight A Thirty Years’ War?

By PATRICK J. BUCHANAN “The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature.” With this citation from Madison, Cong. Walter Jones (R., N.C.) is calling for a debate and decision on whether America should go to war in Syria and Iraq, when Congress reconvenes after November 4. The past week’s events make Jones’ request a national imperative. For former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says we are heading into a “30-year war” against the Islamic State and the emerging threats in Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere. He faults Obama for not bombing Syria when Assad crossed his “red line” and used chemical weapons. U.S. credibility was damaged,…Continue Reading

Did Darwin Ever Cry?

October 12, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Did Darwin Ever Cry?

By DONALD DeMARCO Charles Darwin, on November 24, 1859, published a treatise that was destined to become the foundation of evolutionary biology. Its unabridged title, nonetheless, remains not only controversial, but politically incorrect: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. The science of biology has advanced considerably since 1859. Darwin knew nothing of molecular biology, for example. In retrospect, Darwin’s theory of chance leading to the evolution of species is as infantile as the theory of the atom as postulated by Democritus who lived from 460 to 370 BC. No doubt Charles Darwin had occasion to cry. Had he submitted his tears to scientific analysis, however,…Continue Reading

Abortion In America — The Changing Tide

October 11, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Abortion In America — The Changing Tide

By LAWRENCE P. GRAYSON Abortion in America will be outlawed, and it will occur within the lifetimes of many of us — if we continue to work and pray for its demise. The signs are clear. Public attitudes are changing. Pro-life advocacy is increasing. Pro-abortion support is declining. The battle for the hearts and minds in America is being won. A Rasmussen Reports survey, conducted this summer, found that 52 percent of likely voters now consider abortion to be morally wrong most of the time; only 32 percent believe abortion is morally acceptable in most cases. In 1993, 20 years after the passage of Roe v. Wade, a CBS/New York Times poll found that 42 percent of the respondents thought…Continue Reading

The Crew Working Off-Stage

October 10, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on The Crew Working Off-Stage

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK I should know more than I do about the late evangelical writer Francis Schaeffer. I have been coming across his name for decades now in various conservative Christian publications, usually in a favorable light. If I remember correctly, the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, during his years as editor of First Things, was especially complimentary of his work in laying the intellectual groundwork for the religious right in the 1980s. But I never got around to reading anything by Schaeffer. Maybe someday. It is on my “to do” list. It was for that reason that I went out of my way to read a column about his son Frank Schaeffer, written by Nick Tabor on the…Continue Reading

Abortion In America — The Changing Tide

October 9, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Abortion In America — The Changing Tide

By LAWRENCE P. GRAYSON Abortion in America will be outlawed, and it will occur within the lifetimes of many of us — if we continue to work and pray for its demise. The signs are clear. Public attitudes are changing. Pro-life advocacy is increasing. Pro-abortion support is declining. The battle for the hearts and minds in America is being won. A Rasmussen Reports survey, conducted this summer, found that 52 percent of likely voters now consider abortion to be morally wrong most of the time; only 32 percent believe abortion is morally acceptable in most cases. In 1993, 20 years after the passage of Roe v. Wade, a CBS/New York Times poll found that 42 percent of the respondents thought…Continue Reading

In San Diego Diocese . . . Dissenter Celebrity Receives A Warm Welcome

October 8, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on In San Diego Diocese . . . Dissenter Celebrity Receives A Warm Welcome

By DEXTER DUGGAN One of the paradoxes of Catholic Church reforms initiated in the 1960s is that their alleged greater openness to participation and involvement by the laity often was followed by shutting Catholics out as firmly as they may have been excluded before. Hierarchical structures were opened up, dissenters dashed across the drawbridge into the bishop’s castle, then raised the bridge behind them. Orthodox, practicing Catholics still were left on the outside, with this difference: Previously the Church structure may have been in the hands of hierarchs whom the faithful often at least could feel comfortable with. That changed into newly powerful dissenters establishing their own conformity, which was enforced by lack of responsiveness to the everyday Catholic. The…Continue Reading

Cradle Catholic Apostasy Is Worse Than Paganism

October 7, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Cradle Catholic Apostasy Is Worse Than Paganism

By ALICE von HILDEBRAND One of the most frequently quoted lines in Dante’s Divine Comedy is Francesca da Rimini’s utterance: “Nessun maggior dolore che ricordarsi del tempo felice nella misera” (Inferno, canto V). There is no worse suffering than to recall happy times while living in misery. These words come to my mind when I compare the present religious and moral “climate” of my home country, Belgium, with the one I was privileged to be born in and lived in as a teenager. How is one to explain that a country so deeply rooted in Catholic culture and tradition has now uprooted these sacred plants, and endorsed laws that trample upon the most elementary dictates of the natural moral law?…Continue Reading

The Synod Of Bishops Will Be Anticlimactic

October 6, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on The Synod Of Bishops Will Be Anticlimactic

By REY FLORES “LGBT Catholics would be delighted if the synod accepted same-sex marriages, but they are realistic enough to believe this will not happen” — Sr. Jeannine Gramick, co-founder of New Ways Ministry. + + + The Synod of Bishops that is opening this week has many people talking, both Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Rumors abound about what new changes the bishops will incorporate in regard to what marriage and family mean in the 21st century. According to some sources, the Vatican sent a 39-point questionnaire to Catholic bishops around the world asking for parishioner input on family and contemporary social issues. This was to help prepare the document known as Instrumentum Laboris, which is what the bishops will…Continue Reading

Cardinal Müller . . . Comes To The Defense Of The Sacrament Of Marriage

October 5, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Cardinal Müller . . . Comes To The Defense Of The Sacrament Of Marriage

By MAIKE HICKSON (Editor’s Note: Maike Hickson holds a doctorate in French literature from the University of Hannover.) + + + Ignatius Press has just published two books, The Hope of the Family and Remaining in the Truth of Christ, which are very important in relation to the upcoming Synod of Bishops, taking place October 5-19 in Rome. Both books are important because they are written by influential cardinals in the Church who try thereby to resist proposed novelties of Walter Cardinal Kasper concerning the admission of remarried couples to Holy Communion and concerning an increased leniency of the Church toward those who break God’s marriage laws. (For information on ordering these books, please visit www. ignatius.com or call 1-800-651-1531.)…Continue Reading

Are We In A Religious War With Islam?

October 4, 2014 Frontpage Comments Off on Are We In A Religious War With Islam?

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK Are we in a religious war with ISIL? Or ISIS, if you prefer. (From what I can tell, the acronyms may be used interchangeably, even if there may be different implications in referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, rather than the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.) President Obama never used the term religious war in his speech on September 11. Indeed, he went out of his way to make clear that there is no religious motive behind his call for military action against ISIL, stating emphatically that “ISIL is not Islamic.” But that does not close the question. We can start with the concession that a conflict does not become a…Continue Reading