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Feds back off demand that Catholic hospital extinguish chapel candle…
“We recommend continuing to engage with TJC on implementing these solutions and addressing this deficiency citation in a way that mitigates fire risks while still ensuring you can maintain this feature of your chapel.” A CMS spokesperson told CNA on Friday that “CMS met with the hospital and accreditation organization, and issued a waiver to allow the hospital to mitigate the potential fire risk and correct the safety finding. The hospital will work with the accrediting organization on next steps.” During a Feb. 21 inspection, Windham’s letter to CMS recounted, a surveyor from The Joint Commission at Saint Francis Hospital South in Tulsa “expressly asked to go to the chapel to see if there was a living flame.” The surveyor observed to hospital personnel that “other Catholic hospitals had c...
Blessed Carlo Acutis, the first millennial saint, led people to friendship with Jesus in the Holy Eucharist…
This talk was given during the display of the exhibit “The Eucharistic Miracles of the World by Blessed Carlo Acutis” at Saint Mary-Saint Andrew Church, Ellenville, New York on May 3, 2023 Christian friendship is so important and is so often taken for granted. Mutual friends can become part of each other’s lives so much so that they shape each other irrevocably as iron sharpens iron or as a statue is carved out from marble slowly over time. The love of holy friendships can mold us and motivate us in such a way that they can forever change how we relate to God, to ourselves, and the world. When I look at my own life, there are relationships that I have had with teachers in high school, friends in college and seminary, and as a priest that has forever shaped me, formed me, and mo...
While Jesus makes it clear that we are the victims and he is the hero in a rescue story, Sunday’s readings reveal something more…..
In Lent, Jesus taught us how to recommit ourselves to the Suffering Servant and join his sacrifice. In the Easter Season, he teaches us how to commit ourselves to his Risen Life and join him in his joy. On the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Year A, he makes a key turn in that journey, drawing our attention to the place of safety and peace on the other side of the cross. Ironically, his consoling words about heaven come immediately after his disturbing words about betrayal. “Let not your hearts be troubled,” is the first thing Jesus says in this Sunday’s passage from the Gospel of John. In context, these are the very next words after Jesus tells his apostles that one of them will betray him tells Peter that “the cock will not crow before you deny me three times.” We can take “Let not your hearts b...
Pope Francis has been speaking more about divisions in the Church. And he’s including himself in those who must ask if they are responsible for fomenting them…..
COMMENTARY: Like his holy predecessors, Pope Francis is inviting the Church to join him. Pope Francis chose to let his 10th anniversary pass with no great ceremony and little public comment. Yet subsequently he seemed to be reflecting on his decade in the See of Peter and lamenting that his pontificate has become marked by growing divisions in the life of the Church. That was most evident in his recent apostolic visit to Hungary. It also formed what might be considered an examination of the papal conscience during Holy Week. Something like a public examination of conscience can be part of significant papal anniversaries. On his 20th anniversary in 1998, St. John Paul II preached: “After 20 years of service in the Chair of Peter, I cannot fail to ask myself a few questions today … Are...
Pope’s Sunday Regina Coeli in St. Peter’s Square: ‘Heaven Is Our Homeland … Jesus Is the Way’…
Pope Francis assures the faithful gathered in St Peter’s Square that Heaven is their homeland, and he urges each of them to follow Jesus when they they find themselves wondering where to go and how to get there. By Francesca Merlo Addressing the faithful gathered in St Peter’s Square for his Sunday Regina Coeli, Pope Francis noted that the day’s Gospel Reading, which is taken from Jesus’ last discourse before his death, shows us how even back then Jesus showed the disciples the way, thus reminding us that He does so today, too: “He tells us where to go and how to go there”, said the Pope. Where to go Pope Francis goes on to address the “where to go” aspect, noting that Jesus sees the disciples’ distress and prepares a place for th...
With humanity looking to set foot on the Moon again for the first time in 50 years, space agencies around the world need lunar soil — and lots of it…..
Even with the walls of a volcanic crater looming behind the white-washed single-storey buildings, it would be easy to miss the sleepy town of Tao. It only takes a few moments to pass through it as you drive along the LZ-20 highway that cuts across the middle of Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands. And despite its vicinity to the Tamia volcanic crater at the heart of the island, Tao is not one of Lanzarote’s key tourist attractions. Recently, however, the town has been receiving visitors of a very different kind – those whose interest lies not in the volcano, but in the dark grey soil that Tao is built upon. This drab, rocky material has a surprising part to play in one of this decade’s most ambitious human endeavours. It will help put humans back on the Moon. A team of Spanish sci...
How safe are your passwords? You might find this table surprising…..
Since 2020, we’ve conducted a lot of research to develop and present the Hive Systems Password Table. But for those of you that want to know about the “how” then you’ve come to the right place because we’re going to walk you through our methodology. While the data fits nicely into the table above, things aren’t as as simple as they look. So we’ll talk through the data, our assumptions, and oh, you’re going to see a LOT of variations of the password table. Got a question or comment? Leave it below or message us on your favorite social media platform. “So how’d you make the table”?” In 2022, we shared our update to a colorful infographic table that showed the relative strength of a hashed password against a cracking attempt, based on the password’s length, complexity, hashing alg...
Most Americans Opposed to Transgenderism, Says New Washington Post Poll; 70% Oppose Puberty Blockers for Children…
Clear majorities of Americans support restrictions affecting transgender children, a Washington Post-KFF poll finds, offering political jet fuel for Republicans in statehouses and Congress who are pushing measures restricting curriculum, sports participation and medical care. Most Americans don’t believe it’s even possible to be a gender that differs from that assigned at birth. A 57 percent majority of adults said a person’s gender is determined from the start, with 43 percent saying it can differ. And some Americans have become more conservative on these questions as Republicans have seized the issue and worked to promote new restrictions. The Pew Research Center found 60 percent last year saying one’s gender is determined by the sex assigned at birth, up from 54 percent in 2017. Even am...
How Our Lady will help Christians at the end of time, revealed by the great St. Louis de Montfort…
St. Louis Grignion de Montfort is the author of the famous True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, one of the Marian works par excellence in the history of the Church. Beyond the devotional aspects, this saint prophetically narrates how the opposition between the devil and the Virgin Mary will be exacerbated at the end of time and how Our Lady will help Christians by distributing special graces in the midst of persecution of the Church. Thus, St. Louis de Montfort revealed how the Virgin will help Christians at the end of time St. Louis de Montfort relates that towards the end of time, “the devil, knowing that he has little time left -much less than ever- to lose people, will redouble his efforts and attacks every day. In fact, he will shortly provoke cruel persecutions and set up t...
Believe, so that you may understand: Fides et Ratio at 25…
In 1970, Michael Polanyi wrote an essay called “Why Did We Destroy Europe?” In it, he reflected on the cancerous spread of ideologies and war in the 20th century. He argued that scientific rationalism had initially “been a major influence towards intellectual, moral, and social progress.” But its chronic posture of skepticism and doubt undermined human reason itself and eventually bred a widespread nihilism. That nihilism had been weaponized by the false “scientific” theories of Marxism and National Socialism with murderous results. Despite its achievements, scientific rationalism had, in effect, “become a danger to the spiritual conception of man.” And this “brought about the destruction of liberal societies over wide ranges of Europe.” Throughout his books and essays, Polanyi—a Fellow of...
Elite editors often ignore Catholic stories, so why is Pope St. John Paul II a target?
What is news? Who gets to define that term? These are questions that I ask students when I teach journalism during their freshman year in college. It sounds like a simple question — but increasingly an important one as we examine trends in recent religion coverage in the news media. The bottom line: There is a trend where many religion stories — especially those regarding Catholicism — receive zero coverage whatsoever in the secular mainstream press. However, stories about evangelicals, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodoxy and other faiths have also vanished or never appeared in the first place. When some issues do get coverage, it’s often because it has more to do with politics than debates about doctrine, theology or faith. Why? That’s the key question. It takes us back to the original question:...
Swearing in church, the first rule of Fight Club, and royal eccentrics…
Swearing in church, the first rule of Fight Club, and royal eccentrics Skip to content Happy Friday friends, Tomorrow is coronation day, and as you might expect it is a big deal for all of us in the Condon house, since we all have UK passports, and since our daughter has an affinity for a certain irritating Disney film. At least it’s not Encanto anymore. I hated that film. I’m looking forward to what promises to be an immense spectacle and celebration — even if the actuarial tables suggest it probably won’t be a once in a lifetime event for our family. The ceremony itself has been subject to numerous tweaks and updates since the late Queen was crowned in the 1950s, but on the whole these seem to have been done sensitively, with an eye to keeping as many of the traditions and trappings inta...
