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George Cardinal Pell… Says Trump Made A Positive Contribution To The Christian Cause

January 7, 2021 Frontpage Comments Off on George Cardinal Pell… Says Trump Made A Positive Contribution To The Christian Cause

By PEGGY MOEN “On the whole, I think [President] Trump has made a positive contribution to the Christian cause,” said George Cardinal Pell during a December 16 virtual press conference. Ignatius Press hosted the event.Ignatius held the press conference to mark the release of Cardinal Pell’s Prison Journal, volume one, now available at Ignatius.com and also on Amazon. Volume one runs through July 13, 2019.Wanderer readers will recall from John Young’s reporting that Cardinal Pell was released from prison on April 7, 2020 after the High Court in Australia overturned all his convictions on charges of “historic sexual abuse” (see The Wanderer, April 30, 2020, p. 5A, “The Pell Verdict: Some Reflections” by John Young). Those charges were based on…Continue Reading

The Virtue Of Empathy

January 6, 2021 Frontpage Comments Off on The Virtue Of Empathy

By DONALD DeMARCO Edith Stein (St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross) began writing her doctoral dissertation, The Problem of Empathy, shortly after spending a year as a nurse in the service of the Red Cross. In her capacity as a nurse she learned how we can know the inner experiences of others. Her dissertation, which she ably defended, was a compelling retort to the isolated individualism and skepticism that prevailed in her time.For Dr. Stein, her personal life and her philosophy were profoundly intertwined. Her empathy for others ultimately was the consequence of God’s empathy for her. Empathy is a profoundly human virtue, yet it has implications of the Divine.The world, unfortunately, continues to be deficient in empathy. We are…Continue Reading

As New Year Begins . . . Real Question Isn’t Trump’s Future, But Spineless GOP Establishment’s

January 5, 2021 Frontpage Comments Off on As New Year Begins . . . Real Question Isn’t Trump’s Future, But Spineless GOP Establishment’s

By DEXTER DUGGAN As 2021 barely began, the future of the Republican Party was at least as much being weighed as that of President Trump.While the swamp-dwelling establishment had done all it could to dump Trump — through years of hoaxes and lies, then manipulating the 2020 election — some prominent GOP leaders’ reaction to the massive vote steal was the sort of disgusting surrender that they’d made their characteristic.Trump’s enthusiastic hordes seemed unlikely to stand for more so-familiar spinelessness. If certain Republican leaders were determined to try to push Trump into invisibility, it seemed more probable that they’d be the ones kicked aside. They could win the rewards of showing courage, or receive the deserved fate of cowards.If the…Continue Reading

The New Year Beckons, Burdens And All

January 4, 2021 Frontpage Comments Off on The New Year Beckons, Burdens And All

By CHRISTOPHER MANION Let’s face it. 2021 will bring unprecedented challenges. Its chaotic moments will test the nation’s already eroded habits of order and civil comity. Yes, the past year has seen unprecedented, even punishing assaults on truth, liberty, and Faith. Even as the curtain has been pulled back on the destructive designs of the resurgent Left, our powers to resist, much less to defy and to counterattack, have been diminished to the point of abject surrender. The ubiquitous shambles resemble the aftermath of war, but the devastation has been wrought behind a façade of feigned compassion and incarceration “for our own good.” All in all, the year has been an endless cacophony of lies.And the China Virus? Well, it’s…Continue Reading

Mom

January 1, 2021 Frontpage, Uncategorized Comments Off on Mom

By JOSEPH MATT                 Today we live in a culture that derides and denigrates the noble and essential role of motherhood in our society. One need look no further than the scourge of abortion for proof – in today’s world motherhood is no longer held in high esteem even ridiculed and outright rejected in the case of abortion. In any God fearing civil society, it can be argued motherhood is one of the greatest accomplishments attainable for a woman – after all, the greatest triumph of any human was done so by a woman – we know her as the Mother of Jesus.  How many great men and woman throughout history credit the influence of their mother for their character…Continue Reading

A Missionary’s Christmas In The American Wilderness

December 28, 2020 Frontpage Comments Off on A Missionary’s Christmas In The American Wilderness

By JAMES MONTI God loves to thwart our best-laid plans — because He always has a better plan for us. The Jesuit missionary Fr. Pierre Jean DeSmet certainly found that to be so on Christmas Eve of 1844. Precisely how and why this Belgian priest found himself in an Indian encampment of the Kalispel Tribe in the deep Rocky Mountain wilderness of what is now Washington State on that particular Christmas Eve was a story decades in the making.Around 1820 a Native American tribe of western Montana, the Salish Flatheads, welcomed into their midst a newcomer from a distant Indian nation, an Iroquois of the Mohawk tribe named Ignace La Mousse. Employment by fur traders had led Ignace far from…Continue Reading

The Longest Night Of The Year

December 27, 2020 Frontpage Comments Off on The Longest Night Of The Year

By CHRISTOPHER MANION “Christmas markets closed in Austria and Germany this year.” The headline this week went by quickly, but then a pause. . . . And a memory.It was December 18, 1988. I had a free afternoon on a business trip to Austria that had brought me to Salzburg, so I naturally gravitated towards the Kristkindlmarkt at the Domplatz. It was heavenly…row upon row of Wurstl stands, hot cider, Gluehwein, music, and, of course, lots of beer.At the end of one row, near the cathedral, a local duo was singing. Not just singing, but singing American folk music! I hung around for a few minutes — out of nostalgia as much as anything else, since I’d sung on the…Continue Reading

A Book Review… A Gourmet Christmas From The Swiss Guards

December 26, 2020 Frontpage Comments Off on A Book Review… A Gourmet Christmas From The Swiss Guards

By PEGGY MOEN The Vatican Christmas Cookbook by David Geisser and Thomas Kelly. Published by Sophia Institute Press (Manchester, NH: 2020), www.sophiainstitute.com, or call 1-800-888-9344. $34.95 hardback; 178 pages. “God is in the details,” said architect Mies van der Rohe, and The Vatican Christmas Cookbook overflows with detail in its recipes as well as in its accounts of Christmas with the Popes, Christmas at the Vatican, the Swiss Guard Christmas Watch, and more. The Pontifical Swiss Guards are presenting the book.Like master chefs, the authors of the book blend surprising elements into a tantalizing and intriguing whole.And one of the authors, David Geisser, is a leading chef in Switzerland and a former Swiss Guard. The other author, Thomas Kelly, describes…Continue Reading

Who Would Even Dare Return A Bad Apple?… If The Holy Family Or Our Families Saw All Details Of The Future

December 25, 2020 Frontpage Comments Off on Who Would Even Dare Return A Bad Apple?… If The Holy Family Or Our Families Saw All Details Of The Future

By DEXTER DUGGAN After Mary of Nazareth accepted the angel’s sublime invitation that led her Son from the Nativity to the Cross to the Ascension and opened the gates of Heaven, many everyday cares remained ahead of her and Joseph while running their household with the future young rabbi.Saying yes to a big proposal from an angel, or from a lesser being like a boyfriend or job interviewer, probably entails many other yeses and no’s down the road.Was Joseph getting enough carpentry work to earn a living this week? Anything different to serve for dinner in Nazareth tomorrow? They, like we, had earthly chores to do and tasks to plan, even though we all share hopes for eternal bliss to…Continue Reading

The Last Dream

December 24, 2020 Frontpage Comments Off on The Last Dream

By DEREK BECHER Sixty-two Christmases he spent alone, after the year that his parents died, leaving him as an orphan. Each Christmas passed like just another day, another page falling endlessly from the calendar of his life. And all the while, in the privacy of his mind and his weakening heart, he hoped for something more, wished for something better.But with no family and nary a friend, he found it difficult to be touched by the wonder of the Christmas season, unable to even imagine how it would feel to spend the holidays with love.And so, with Christmas morning again less than twelve hours away, and his life’s days now surely numbered, he arranged the loose papers to best find…Continue Reading