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Poem: "Late"

Poem: “Late”

Jul 26 11 • 0 comments

Late The Holy Father is expected But has not by this time arrived To celebrate a Mass outdoors – A stadium is set aside But not too large, a pocket field That holds a smallish crowd of faithful, Even so, the seats not filled Empty ones for late arrivals Scattered in the sloping grandstand And […]

CL333 - hbratton notxt

Catholic Church is Booming

Jul 25 11 • 1 comment

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on new survey data profiling Catholicism: All we ever hear from the wild-eyed critics of the Catholic Church, including the dissidents within, is that the Church had better “get with it” and change its teachings on abortion, homosexuality and women’s ordination. Yet it is precisely those religious institutions that […]

Criminal Minds

Criminal Minds

Jul 25 11 • 0 comments

The field of bioethics, which is a fairly recent phenomenon in the history of mankind, has always been a slippery slope, as there is a huge difference between the natural law and the bioethical framework of committees or individuals making up the rules as they move along.  In analyzing “Which Medical Ethics for the 21st […]

Debt, Finance, and Catholics

Debt, Finance, and Catholics

Jul 25 11 • 0 comments

Debt and deficits seem to be on everyone’s minds these days. Whether it be worries about the American government’s fiscal woes, Europe’s fragile banking system, or the debt-as-a-way-of-life culture that disfigures so many lives, many people are seeking guidance about how to release ourselves from this mess with our souls intact. In this regard, Catholics […]

The Missing Grace in Public School Abstinence Programs

The Missing Grace in Public School Abstinence Programs

Jul 25 11 • 3 comments

The chattering classes have focused fresh attention on what they perceive as that last definable sin: hypocrisy. They claim to have found it anew in Sarah Palin’s family, because her son — recently married — seems to have conceived his first child before exchanging vows. This has naturally led to heated discussions over the abstinence-based programs […]

How American Idol Can Make Your Website a Star

How American Idol Can Make Your Website a Star

Jul 25 11 • 0 comments

You can learn a lot from watching American Idol year after year. That’s because American Idol offers real lessons about what makes a star. When the top 24 are selected, there are so many wonderful singers that I always wonder, “How will one person ever rise to the top?” But, inevitably, someone does. We, the […]

Poem: "The Funeral"

Poem: “The Funeral”

The Funeral begins with the birth-date of skin,               color, gender, bruising                      caused by delivery into your particular place or family. No one knows what you now feel. No relative totally relates. No medical force utterly understands          the length of your life,          your foot, your hand,          or other wonderments          with […]

Poem: "Columba in the Church Alone"

Poem: “Columba in the Church Alone”

Jul 24 11 • 0 comments

Columba in the Church Alone Columba in the church alone So long ago on Iouan island Light streamed through the shuttered windows Through the seams of doors it flowed Did he not converse with angels? Fantasy and myth and legend Say the ones whose shutters close Whose doors of love are firmly fastened Whose house […]

Old vs. New

Old vs. New

“Liberal” and “conservative.”  The definitions of these terms are seldom stated.  Usually they are just presumed.  Often people call “conservative” those who like old-fashioned things and “liberal” those who favor the latest ideas, trends, and values.  But for the Christian, the ultimate question is not personal preferences of style, or whether something is old or […]

Gender Discrimination vs. Faith Discrimination

Gender Discrimination vs. Faith Discrimination

Jul 23 11 • 0 comments

Valley Park Middle School is in the news again. Some weeks ago, this Toronto, Canada, school was highlighted for allowing Muslim students to hold a 30-minute prayer service in the school cafeteria during class time each Friday afternoon. That brought an initial wave of uproar from both sides of the debate regarding the permitting of […]

Size Matters

Size Matters

Jul 23 11 • 3 comments

The current deficit and debt ceiling negotiations happening in Washington represent politics at their worst – politics on steroids.  Amidst the posturing and prevaricating, however, one conservative has emerged with a legitimate plan to liberate America from its bondage of debt.  This week, Senator Tom Coburn released a 600-page plan that would reduce the deficit […]

Poem: "Down From the Night"

Poem: “Down From the Night”

Jul 23 11 • 0 comments

Down From the Night A humid night, a balmy dusk, Fireflies on summer leaves Bear flashing likeness to the stars, but how Do rising stars resemble these? Think now, think, how can it be That suns can glow like fireflies, Attracting what above themselves, Flashing, burning as they rise? Both are temporal and pass – […]

A Free Speech Challenge for Parents

A Free Speech Challenge for Parents

Jul 22 11 • 0 comments

Should a 13-year-old be able to purchase a school-shooting simulator without parents’ knowledge or consent? The Supreme Court says that freedom of speech requires that 13-year-olds have that opportunity. In a 7-2 decision, the court struck down a California law barring the sale of graphically violent video games to people under 18. I have not […]

No Paul, No Jesus; Know Paul, Know Jesus

No Paul, No Jesus; Know Paul, Know Jesus

Saint Paul wrote that he was “all things to all people.”  Paul was a Jew, a Roman citizen, a Pharisee, an apostle, a preacher, a teacher, a tentmaker, and an evangelizer.  And Paul was a writer.  Thirteen of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament are attributed to him, making him a prolific composer.   He […]

Smearing Bachmann

Smearing Bachmann

Move over, Sarah Palin. Michele Bachmann is the new bogeyman — er, woman — of the left. She opposes pornography and abortion. She’s stingy with the taxpayer money entrusted to her. There are even rumors that she gets headaches — really, really bad headaches. As for her family values, well, yes, Bachmann and her husband […]

Bishops: "Pregnancy is Not a Disease"

Bishops: “Pregnancy is Not a Disease”

Jul 22 11 • 0 comments

After the Institute of Medicine (IOM) this week publicly backed government-mandated birth control coverage, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is standing in the breach against what would prove a massive victory for abortion giant Planned Parenthood. The birth control question has sparked a rare spectacle as the two most influential lobbies on sexual […]

Poem: "Who Sends These Winds?"

Poem: “Who Sends These Winds?”

Jul 22 11 • 0 comments

Who Sends These Winds? How can you say you are alone, my love, Feel the rays of the fuse set up high Warming, giving life, giving light To frigid lonely flesh In heat served up fresh each morning? How can you say I’m not here? Here come the galloping winds Here come the playful winds […]

Solid Food and the State of the Liturgy

Solid Food and the State of the Liturgy

Jul 21 11 • 17 comments

“I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet you are not ready, for you are still of the flesh” (1 Cor. 3:2-3). To wit, I would submit that the changes that have taken place in the sacred liturgy since the Council closed find their impetus […]

Oh, Brother! (Times Six!)

Oh, Brother! (Times Six!)

Jul 21 11 • 0 comments

Not too long ago my daughter came up the basement stairs in tears.  It seems her two big brothers and one younger brother were destroying her eight year old world and she had had it!  “Mom, you have no idea what it is like to have to deal with 3 brothers!”  She wailed. A perfect […]

Poem: "You and I Alone"

Poem: “You and I Alone”

Jul 21 11 • 0 comments

You and I Alone In this desert nothing lives but prophecy, Lightning in the sterile sky but never rain, Search the future in the desert secrecy, Torah of the line of the horizon Turn around the circle that you turn, There is the far meniscus of the shape Of earth that has been molten till […]

What the Last Harry Potter Movie Got Wrong

What the Last Harry Potter Movie Got Wrong

Spoiler alert:  Please do not read this article if you have not read the books and plan to see the last movie. I came to the Harry Potter books late. I didn’t read them until my children wanted to read them. As a result, unlike those who had to wait patiently or not so patiently […]

Could You Survive Another Great Depression?

Could You Survive Another Great Depression?

Jul 20 11 • 3 comments

I just read two very interesting articles on the U.S. economy, written from historical perspectives. They compelled me to share my own historical perspective. And what I want to say is more about our changing culture than our economy. One of the articles, by Julie Crawshaw of MoneyNews.com, notes that the “Misery Index”—the combined unemployment […]

Unfounded Population Fears Drive New UN Campaign

Unfounded Population Fears Drive New UN Campaign

Messaging tied to a major new UN campaign reveals that the catastrophic fears common among population experts in the past 40 years regarding overpopulation and global population growth never came to pass and are now obsolete given new global population realities. The pro-abortion UN Population Fund launched the 7 Billion Actions campaign this week on […]

Downfall: Europe's Failed Political Class

Downfall: Europe’s Failed Political Class

Jul 20 11 • 0 comments

  The casualty list from Europe’s apparently-endless financial crisis continues to grow. If you’re young, a taxpayer, or a German in today’s EU, you have good reason to believe you’ve been dealt a very bad hand. There is, however, one impending casualty whose demise is fully merited. And that’s the credibility of Europe’s political class. […]