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Moratorium On Common Core Standards

November 29, 2013 Featured Today Comments Off on Moratorium On Common Core Standards

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK I don’t know if we should view the information coming out of New York City regarding Common Core as good news or bad; I await our readers’ reactions. It seems as if the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), New York City’s teachers union, is calling for a delay on any decisions about teacher performance based upon the implementation of the controversial federally mandated curriculum. On October 14, the web site Education News reported that the UFT, “citing a lack of curriculum materials in many schools in New York City,” is “calling for a moratorium on high-stakes consequences for Common Core Standards assessments as the city schools are just a few months into implementing new teacher evaluations.”…Continue Reading

Cracked Open… Exposing The Myths Of The IVF Industry

November 28, 2013 Featured Today Comments Off on Cracked Open… Exposing The Myths Of The IVF Industry

By FR. JOHN FLYNN, LC (Editor’s Note: The following commentary on the IVF industry was published by ZENIT News Agency. Fr. Flynn is a regular contributor to ZENIT. All rights reserved.) +    +    + Postponed motherhood, with the help of IVF, is an increasingly common practice, but women may well be led to false assumptions regarding their chances of success. This is one of the main points raised in a recently published book, Cracked Open: Liberty, Fertility, and the Pursuit of High-Tech Babies, by Miriam Zoll (Interlink Books). The book’s foreword, by Michele Goodwin, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, and Judy Norsigian, executive director of Our Bodies Ourselves, noted that according to one survey one out…Continue Reading

The Hillary Movie: Hollywood’s Moment Of Truth

November 27, 2013 Featured Today Comments Off on The Hillary Movie: Hollywood’s Moment Of Truth

By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK Brent Bozell informed us in a recent column that the plans for two movies about Hillary Clinton — one by CNN, the other by NBC — have been shelved. Bozell reports that Charles Ferguson, the left-leaning filmmaker assigned to make the film about Hillary by CNN Films, couldn’t deal with the control over his project demanded by the Clintons. “Hillary would not agree to an off-the-record conversation,” said Ferguson. He added that Clinton aides tried to stonewall his attempts to persuade people to talk on camera. “They knew this wasn’t a whitewash,” he said. “And my very strong impression was that anything other than a whitewash is something they don’t want to support.” Good news, but…Continue Reading

Don’t Count Your Turkeys Before They Hatch… But Despite Scandals, Obama Still Could Repent

November 26, 2013 Featured Today Comments Off on Don’t Count Your Turkeys Before They Hatch… But Despite Scandals, Obama Still Could Repent

By DEXTER DUGGAN Your Barack Obama Thanksgiving Feast has just been delivered to your house, and it looks like the president finally has made good on something. This is a really big box! You had an extra $20 withheld from your paycheck monthly beginning in January. By October, you’d painlessly accumulated $200 in your Federal Feast Account, just as Obama promised. And here’s the delivery on Thanksgiving Day, with your home full of relatives drooling in anticipation. Get that box open! Waaait a minute! Four pounds of broccoli, two gallons of water, and six exercise bicycles hooked up to generate Earth-friendly electricity? Plus our pre-planned Thanksgiving Day time schedule? We get five minutes to eat, one minute to drink, then…Continue Reading

CUA Severs . . . Link With National Association Of Social Workers

November 25, 2013 Featured Today Comments Off on CUA Severs . . . Link With National Association Of Social Workers

By KIRSTEN ANDERSEN WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The new dean of Catholic University’s School of Social Service (NCSSS) is under fire from abortion supporters after announcing the school would no longer partner with the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) because of the group’s strong policy stance in favor of legalized abortion. Will Rainford, who has served as dean of the National Catholic School of Social Service since June, told students in an e-mail that he would “no longer allow NCSSS to officially partner or collaborate with NASW — based solely on NASW’s overt public position that social workers should advocate for access to abortions.” Rainford’s decision was made in light of a 2008 policy statement by NASW asserting that…Continue Reading

Culture Of Life 101 . . . “The Promise Of Authentic Economic Development”

November 24, 2013 Featured Today Comments Off on Culture Of Life 101 . . . “The Promise Of Authentic Economic Development”

By BRIAN CLOWES (Editor’s Note: Brian Clowes has been director of research and training at Human Life International since 1995. For an electronic copy of chapter 20 of The Facts of Life, “The Demographic Impacts of Abortion,” e-mail him at bclowes@hli.org.) +    +    + We have seen that the so-called “developed” nations of the world have poured more than $102 billion into population control since 1991, most of it directed toward Africa. This gigantic amount of money is almost unimaginable; if converted into dollar bills, it would make a cube 150 feet on a side and would weigh 122,000 tons — enough to load a freight train 19 miles long! Yet the only “benefit” reaped by the expenditure of all…Continue Reading

A Book Review… An Acute Observer Of Perennial Topics

November 23, 2013 Featured Today Comments Off on A Book Review… An Acute Observer Of Perennial Topics

By JUDE DOUGHERTY Santayana, George. The Life of Reason: Reason in Society. Critical edition, co-edited by Marianne S. Wokeck and Martin A. Coleman, with an introduction by James Gouinlock. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2013. Santayana’s Life of Reason was published in five volumes (1905-1906). This is the second of the five volumes and is published as Volume VII, Book Two of The Collected Works of George Santayana. Chapter titles alone are enough to indicate the content of this volume: “Love,” “The Family,” “Industry, Government, and War,” “The Aristocratic Ideal,” “Democracy,” “Free Society,” “Patriotism,” and “Ideal Society.” Although written more than a hundred years ago, the book is timely, given that the topics addressed are in a sense perennial. Santayana is…Continue Reading

Reconnecting With Mary . . . The Brown Scapular: Miracles, The Popes, And Fatima

November 22, 2013 Featured Today Comments Off on Reconnecting With Mary . . . The Brown Scapular: Miracles, The Popes, And Fatima

By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY Part 2 The previous article looked at the history of the brown scapular, its importance, and its nature as a sacramental of the Church. This article will look at some miraculous events associated with the brown scapular, what various Popes have said about it, and how our Lady promoted it at Fatima. But first, it is important to realize that wearing the scapular doesn’t do away with the need to receive the sacraments, or to live a good Christian life, nor is it a “magic talisman” which will automatically work no matter what sins the wearer commits; rather, it is a sign of God’s mercy mediated by our Lady. There have been cases of people living…Continue Reading

“Dialogue And Encounter Were The Vital And Long-Lasting Experience”

November 21, 2013 Featured Today Comments Off on “Dialogue And Encounter Were The Vital And Long-Lasting Experience”

By TARCISIO CARDINAL BERTONE VATICAN CITY (ZENIT) — Here is a translation of an address given November 12 by the former Vatican secretary of state, Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, at the presentation of his book Papal Diplomacy in a Globalized World. ZENIT News Agency provided the translation and the text. All rights reserved.) +    +    + Eminence, Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Dear Friends, After hearing the learned reports given to illustrate the contents of the ponderous volume that brings together the main addresses pronounced in these seven years of service to the Holy See, the moment of thanks has arrived. To the organizers of the event, in particular, to the collaborators of the Secretariat of State and to my secretary, to the…Continue Reading

The CCHD Collection Is Upon Us Again

November 20, 2013 Featured Today Comments Off on The CCHD Collection Is Upon Us Again

By REY FLORES The time has come again, folks, to hide your wallets and purses from that old collection known as the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). This year, the CCHD collection takes place on the weekend of November 23 and 24 and the USCCB is sticking the collection basket right under our noses already. As the former director of the CCHD in Chicago a few years back, I seriously believed that I and a few solid priests, bishops, and laity would be able to work hard and make the CCHD more Catholic. I really thought it would be possible for social justice and respect life forces to work together, but it proved to be a much bigger task…Continue Reading