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Religion Books in the Catholic School

[This report was prepared on behalf of a group of Catholic parents to address issues locally that may also be going on elsewhere in the country.  It is published here as a resource for parents who may find it useful.] Religion Books in the Catholic School: Parental Concerns and Suggested Remedies Our parent’s group has […]

Recapturing the Vertical Dimension of Faith

Laboring in the desert of the kingdom of man, the true believer finds himself bent by the weight of sin, stiffened by the pain of sorrow and stained by the sweat of fear.  While he knows that God created him out of pure love, redeems Him out of pure mercy and awaits his full return […]

Call for Federal Investigation of Fetal DNA/Autism Vaccine Link

Children of God for Life ( www.cogforlife.org )  and Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute ( www.soundchoice.org ) are calling on federal officials to investigate the cause of autism in children who have received vaccines produced using aborted fetal cell lines. Past studies have focused on the use of thimerosal in vaccines as reason for the rise in autism.  […]

World Day of Prayer for Vocations: Think God; Trust God; Thank God!

In the 1980 film Oh, God: Book II 11-year-old Tracy Richards believes that God is talking to her.  In fact, God (played by George Burns) wants Tracy to tell everybody she knows that he is real.  So she does.  She drafts a slogan and message, just two words, is conclusive and clear: THINK GOD.  She […]

Abundant Life

The atheist philosopher of the 19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche, once said: “if Christians want me to believe in their redeemer, they need to look more redeemed.” He was drawing the wrong conclusion from a perceptive observation.  To Nietzsche most Christians looked just as burdened, clueless and lost as everybody else.  When he looked into their […]

New Document on the Ever New Traditional Mass

“Introibo ad altare Dei“: Document on How to Implement Summorum Pontificum Published in Rome Today, May 13, 2011 A day of rejoicing for Catholics who love the rich, profound tradition of the old Latin liturgy. A day — May 13, 2011 — which, bracketed with July 7, 2007, when the Pope published Summorum Pontificum, will […]

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

HEAR YE! HEAR YE! READ ALL ABOUT IT! This what one used to hear on the corners back when the newsboys wanted to tell people that something spectacular was happening in the world. In the past 30 days, we should have heard this call about two different events. One was the Standard & Poor downgrade […]

Understanding Rand

Christians have a deep ambivalence about Ayn Rand that probably draws as deeply from the facts of her biography as from her famous novels. When the refugee from the old Soviet Union met the Catholic William F. Buckley, she said, “You are too intelligent to believe in God.” Her atheism was militant. Rand’s holy symbol […]

Comic: Paranoid Cats

Gloom in China’s New Census

China’s just-released 2010 census is grim news for those who claim that suppressing population growth boosts economic development. China is graying more rapidly than previously predicted and its demographic dividend will decline sharply just two years from now, causing an economic slow-down and political and social unrest. China Brief’s Willy Lam analyzes the new census […]

Is the Antichrist Here?

Uprising after uprising in the Middle East; sexual and intellectual scandal in the Church; earthquakes in Chile and Haiti; tsunamis in Indonesia and Japan; and financial collapse in almost every market: given the startling increase in the frequency of global crises –political, religious, financial, natural — one is tempted to begin looking for the antichrist […]

Christian Charity and the Welfare State

One of the great privileges and duties of practicing Christians is to do charitable deeds. Virtually all Christians agree on this point. There is, however, a great divide in Christendom between those who believe that charitable giving should be a voluntary, private-sector ministry and those who believe that a government welfare state should oversee a […]

Heaven and Hell

Heaven and hell are in the news and on Americans’ minds a lot lately. Heaven Is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back is currently number one on the New York Times Best Seller List for nonfiction. It details a four-year-old’s near-death experience as told to his pastor father. […]

A Biblical Roadmap To The One, True Church

Teach me, LORD, your way that I may walk in your truth. (Ps 86:11) Sounds simple, doesn’t it?  I can’t imagine any Christian looking at the above verse and disagreeing with its content.  Essentially, it is a summary of our mission as followers of Christ. But exactly how does the Lord teach us “His way” […]

Benedict XVI: In No One’s Shadow

It was inevitable. In the lead-up to John Paul II’s beatification, a number of publications decided it was time to opine about the direction of Benedict XVI’s pontificate. The Economist, for example, portrayed a pontificate adrift, “accident-prone,” and with a “less than stellar record” compared to Benedict’s dynamic predecessor (who, incidentally, didn’t meet with the Economist‘s approval […]

Do We Recognize Jesus?

This week’s Gospel (Lk 24:13-35) features Jesus and two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Jesus walks with them and talks with them and still, they do not realize who is in their midst until he breaks bread with them.  One thing the Resurrection appearances of Jesus have in common is that those who first […]

Poem: “One of Us”

One of Us The old ones saw like us A great wall rise and crumble Admit, expel Barbarity and anarchy Defend and give away Concord and stability But now the wall divides The human from the inhuman The creature and the function The soul from the switch And it is derelict, a ruin The dark, […]

Why I Am a Monarchist

The announcement that one is a monarchist is greeted with the same regard as the announcement that one has joined the Flat-Earth Society, or espouses geo-centrism, or has expressed a belief in a world only 6,000 years old, where God planted fossils in the ground just for fun. Politically, monarchism has a prestige just a […]

Prince Charles Feeding Hogwash to the World

You hardly could blame Prince Charles for the raspy voice with which he lectured the students of Georgetown University last week, what with his speech on sustainable food coming just five days after the multimillion-dollar wedding of his son, Prince William, to the charming commoner Kate Middleton. After all, when you’re partying all night with […]

St. Peter in Chains

There are only three churches in Rome, as far as I know, dedicated to St. Peter: (1) the great St. Peter’s Basilica, at the heart of the Vatican and of the universal Church, where Peter is buried; (2) the tiny St. Peter in Montorio, just above Trastevere, where one tradition has it that St. Peter […]

The Feminist Pope

The swiftness of Pope John Paul II’s rise from popular pope to “Blessed John Paul” […] sparked widespread debate in advance of his beatification [Divine Mercy] Sunday. Critics charge that his failures in addressing the clergy sex abuse crisis should disqualify him from beatification, or at least stall the process. Defenders say his administrative shortcomings do not […]

Building a Catholic Bioethics Knowledge Base Amidst a Busy Life

Many people today are very busy, sometimes wondering “who’s got time to read?”  And yet, given the rapid and varied scientific breakthroughs which render contemporary research and healthcare contexts evermore complex and morally confusing, relevant reading is arguably imperative given our responsibility to the common good as voters, donors to charities, and investors in corporations […]

Poem: “Wondering Bones”

Wondering Bones The late afternoon sky reminded me of old, worn out bones, gray, ashen, but filled with a holy spirit, mine and God’s. and I wondered if my life would be as much of a Gift to those who have been such a Gift to me… Niles Comer

The Easter Season, A Time to be Born from Above

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. He came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said […]