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To Mock A Killing Bird

April 14, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on To Mock A Killing Bird

By DONALD DeMARCO I was chatting with a high school English teacher recently and asked what she was using at the moment in her classroom. “To Kill a Mockingbird,” she answered, “and the students love it.” Harper Lee’s 1960 novel has been immensely successful. It won a Pulitzer Prize for its author and the film version won three Academy Awards, including best actor for Gregory Peck. In 2005 the British Institute included it in its list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14. Atticus Finch, the protagonist, played by Peck, is widely considered as the most convincing cinematic image of racial heroism. Perhaps, I suggested, the novel is even better suited for a class in…Continue Reading

A Book Review . . . St. Peter Of Alcantara Tells Us How To Pray And Meditate

April 13, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review . . . St. Peter Of Alcantara Tells Us How To Pray And Meditate

By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY Treatise on Prayer and Meditation, by St. Peter of Alcantara (212 pages, TAN Books & Publishers Inc., paperback and Kindle). Visit www.tanbooks.com, or call 1-800-437-5876. St. Peter of Alcantara (1499-1562) was born in Spain, and became a Franciscan friar in a strict observance friary. He was ordained in 1524, and went on to become a well-known preacher. He lived an extremely austere life and developed a reputation for great holiness, and for miraculous powers and prophetic insights. Later on, he lived a stricter eremitical life, and became one of the spiritual directors of St. Teresa of Avila, encouraging her in her Carmelite reforms. He lived during the tumultuous times when the effects of the Reformation and…Continue Reading

Buttigieg’s Dishonesty Is Astonishing

April 12, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Buttigieg’s Dishonesty Is Astonishing

By BILL DONOHUE (Editor’s Note: Catholic League President Bill Donohue commented April 4 on presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg.) + + + South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg is being hailed in some quarters as an honest man who would make a good president. Picking up on this image, he is now selling himself as a committed Christian, one who is much more broad-minded than Christian conservatives. When asked by Kirsten Powers the past week about his favorite Bible verses, his first response was to cite a passage from Matthew: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these . . . you did for me.” Who would qualify as being among “the least of these”? Surely those who are…Continue Reading

Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic . . . The Proper Response To The College Admissions Scandal

April 11, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Neither Left Nor Right, But Catholic . . . The Proper Response To The College Admissions Scandal

By STEPHEN M. KRASON (Editor’s Note: Stephen M. Krason’s Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic column appears monthly [sometimes bimonthly]. He is a 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 and a lawyer. (Among his books are: Liberalism, Conservatism, and Catholicism; The Transformation of the American Democratic Republic; Catholicism and American Political Ideologies, and a Catholic political novel, American Cincinnatus. This column originally appeared in Crisismagazine.com and is reprinted with permission. The views expressed here are his own.) + + + The college admissions scandal that hit the news a…Continue Reading

Priest Of The Diocese Of Tulsa… Celebrated Mass On The Set Of Unplanned

April 10, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Priest Of The Diocese Of Tulsa… Celebrated Mass On The Set Of Unplanned

By JONAH McKEOWN STILLWATER, Okla. (CNA) — When a film crew arrived in the small college town of Stillwater, Okla., last spring, few residents realized exactly what kind of movie the crew was making. The film, which residents soon learned was called “Redeemed,” was rather vaguely described as being “based on a true story of a woman’s journey and God’s redeeming love and forgiveness,” according to local media. The most tightly controlled and top secret film set in the town, however, offered some clues about the film’s subject matter. The film crew transformed a nondescript building on the edge of downtown into a replica of a Planned Parenthood abortion facility. Fr. Brian O’Brien, pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church in…Continue Reading

Mathematics And Liberal Education

April 9, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Mathematics And Liberal Education

By ARTHUR HIPPLER (Editor’s Note: Dr. Hippler is chairman of the religion department and teaches religion in the Upper School at Providence Academy, Plymouth, Minn.) + + + Without doubt, one of the most important courses I had at Thomas Aquinas College was freshman mathematics — a yearlong study of all thirteen books of Euclid’s Elements. While very often we were discussing Euclid’s principles and reasoning, much of the course was occupied with demonstrating the propositions from memory on the chalkboard — no notes and only minor nudging. I was not a gifted student in math, so I spend over an hour every night, writing out the propositions to make sure I had grasped all the steps. (My sister, by…Continue Reading

Pope Francis . . . Issues Child Protection Laws For Vatican City State, Roman Curia

April 8, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Pope Francis . . . Issues Child Protection Laws For Vatican City State, Roman Curia

By HANNAH BROCKHAUS VATICAN CITY (CNA) — Pope Francis has issued new laws and guidelines on the protection of minors for those working within Vatican City State and the Roman Curia, including the obligation to report abuse. Under the new law, promulgated by the Pope March 29, officials of the Roman Curia and Vatican City State are obliged to report “without delay” any knowledge or well-founded suspicion of abuse against a minor or vulnerable adult learned in the exercise of their position — though with the obvious exception of information learned only within Confession, which is protected by the sacramental seal. The failure to report abuse in a timely manner is punishable by a fine of 1,000 to 5,000 euros…Continue Reading

The Wisdom Of The World

April 7, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on The Wisdom Of The World

By DONALD DeMARCO It is becoming more evident day by day that the “wisdom” of the world is the perfect antithesis of what it claims to be. Feminist icon Gloria Steinem recently stated on NBC’s Today show that pro-life activists are comparable to Nazis and “are pulling a page out of Hitler’s playbook.” The governor of New York has approved abortion up until birth as well as commercial surrogacy. Democrats have approved infanticide for children who survive abortion. A sex-education curriculum in Canada omits love, commitment, self-control, faithfulness, and marriage. “Men” — that is, transgendered women — can now have abortions. We are witnessing what scholar Anthony Esolen has characterized as “a kind of stupidity that surpasses the capacity of…Continue Reading

Our Agrarian Lent

April 6, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Our Agrarian Lent

By SHAUN KENNEY On the bright and clear morning that I am writing this, it is 19 degrees Fahrenheit outside — a cold and brisk surface temperature matched only by the glowing warmth of a bright and cloudless sky. For those of you who live towards Virginia, you know that the last two years have shared two traits in common. It has been cold, and it has been soaking wet. Last year was Charlottesville’s wettest year on record going back to the 1880s, which had quite an impact on the local farming community — including that detestable word agritourism. The commercialization of the sacred is something that we have grown accustomed to during the twentieth century, and it shows no…Continue Reading

Holy Father . . . Amends Church Law To Dismiss Deserters From Religious Communities

April 5, 2019 Featured Today Comments Off on Holy Father . . . Amends Church Law To Dismiss Deserters From Religious Communities

By HANNAH BROCKHAUS VATICAN CITY (CNA) — Pope Francis amended canon law on March 26 to create a new mechanism for dismissing a religious man or woman who has deserted their community. Under the new law, promulgated by the Pope in an apostolic letter issued motu proprio, superiors can declare a member dismissed ipso facto if they have been illicitly absent from the community for more than a year and cannot be located. “Community life is an essential element of religious life,” Francis stated in the letter, titled Communis vita (“Common life”) and issued March 26. He cited canon 665 of the Code of Canon Law, which provides that “religious must live in their own religious house observing common life…Continue Reading