This Wednesday, the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. Please act now to tell your representative to vote “Yes” on this bill. It is a horrific reality in this country that children who are fully born and living after a failed abortion can in many instances be left to die without medical attention and basic needs met. The Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act would require health care professionals to offer the same level of medical care to such children as would be appropriate for a premature baby born at the same age. Please make your voice heard and ask Congress to help save these vulnerable survivors among us. [Guidelines: Messages in your own words can be more effective. Please consider customizing the Message Body wit...
Nineteen percent of adults changed religious affiliation between March 2020 and March 2022, 6% were unaffiliated before the pandemic but are now affiliated, and 5% had a religious affiliation but now are not. Twice as many adults decreased religious attendance than increased attendance. The observed changes could mean that religious affiliation tells us less about Americans and their religious beliefs and theological commitments, the AEI report said. The changes could mean more polarization between regular attendees of religious worship and their self-identified co-religionists. “Past research has shown that Americans who regularly attend services are more likely to embrace the formal tenets of their faith and share a similar cultural worldview as their coreligionists,” the report said. Th...
Free speech is under increasing attack in Canada. Over the past decade, ideologically emboldened political leaders, activists, and professional regulators have narrowed the field of allowable discourse and sought to punish any expression that ventures outside it. The latest threat to free speech in Canada involves an Ontario College of Psychologists (OCP) investigation of clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson for allegedly harming various individuals for his public comments on Twitter and The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Examples of Peterson’s supposed crimes on social media include calling for an end to unscientific, discriminatory vaccine mandates, retweeting Canada’s Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, and lambasting Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. One complainant submi...
The Australian cardinal succumbed to a suspected heart attack following hip replacement surgery in Rome, according to his secretary. Cardinal George Pell has died in Rome this evening at the age of 81. The Australian cardinal had been admitted to a Rome hospital for routine hip replacement surgery on Tuesday afternoon. The operation was successful and was in good spirits, but he later suffered a suspected cardiac arrest, according to his personal secretary, Father Joseph Hamilton, who added that they are awaiting an autopsy. The Archdiocese of Sydney is expected to issue a statement shortly. Pope Francis appointed Cardinal Pell the Vatican’s first prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy in 2014 in a move to help clear up Vatican finances after a series of highl...
The “surplus population” is, in fact, the population that the Constitution is made to protect. What do Ebenezer Scrooge and Planned Parenthood have in common? The fundamental answer to this question is more than a sentimental appeal to “the Christmas spirit” or a “cheap-shot” at the abortion industry. The answer is found in the writings of the British Anglican Reverend, Thomas Malthus. In 1798, Malthus wrote “An Essay on the Principle of Population” and worked and reworked the core ideas of this piece over the next several years. He never fundamentally changed from his one big thought: human population increases exponentially while food only increases linearly. Thus, there will always be a tendency in the human race for population to “overpower” food; hence there will be, in the words of S...
In the previous pieces for this series, we referenced C. S. Lewis’s Trilemma, essentially: in claiming He was God, Jesus was either a liar, insane, or God. We’ve addressed that Jesus actually lived and walked on earth, that He claimed divinity, that He was not a liar, and that He was not insane. And that leaves us with the same conclusion of the centurion in Mark’s Gospel: “Surely, this man was the Son of God.” To bring this Trilemma series to a close, let’s make a few final observations.
This is a still from the “Revolution of the Heart: The Dorothy Day Story,” a film by Martin Doblmeier. (CNS photo/courtesy Journey Films) They had gotten a telegram from the Communist Party’s newspaper just before Christmas asking for their help, Dorothy Day wrote in her column in the January 1937 issue of Catholic Worker. She took the chance to challenge their political mind with the Christian insight. The Daily Worker held the hard Marxist idea that political needs determine what is true and false. The political needs were mainly those of the Soviet Union, then run by Joseph Stalin, who had only a few years before finished his near-genocidal war on the Ukrainian people. At the time the editor telegraphed, the newspaper proclaimed, with the rest of the world’s communist press,...
“If you’re feeling helpless in your vocation, if you’re feeling like you’re resenting parenthood or marriage, family life — we want you to be able to find hope; to be able to have some practical tools for getting yourself out of that rut and to be able to experience the joy of your vocation and the love of God — and experience God’s peace in your home. We really hope that our book accomplishes that for fellow Catholic parents,” said Debbie Cowden, co-author with her husband, David, of “The Prayer Book for Tired Parents: Practical Ways to Grow in Love of God and Get Your Family to Heaven” (Sophia Institute Press). Debbie Cowden is senior digital media specialist at EWTN. The Cowdens live in Ohio with their three young children. Learn mor...
<div class="sqs-block embed-block sqs-block-embed" data-block-json="{"height":null,"url":"https://twitter.com/VudatNation/status/1611589806525452288","width":550,"html":" Dear @washingtonpost \u2014 I don\u2019t know if you have a Catholic journalist or editor on staff? But if you don\u2019t \u2014 I would be gladly to be your volunteer editor for your paper next time you covering Catholic Mass or event so that I might be able to help you to use correct terms. Thanks pic.twitter.com/IUnOuuXx0H — Rev Doug Vu (@VudatNation) January 7, 2023 \n","resolvedBy":"twitter","providerName":"Twitter","customThumbEnabled":false,"floatDir":null,"hSize&q...
Another episode reportedly discussed in the book is Gänswein’s effective dismissal from the role of prefect of the Papal Household, which occurred in 2020. Originally appointed to the position by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012, Gänswein continued to serve as prefect during Pope Francis’ pontificate, a role that includes organizing official audiences with the Holy Father. However, Gänswein ceased performing the duties associated with the position following a controversy in January 2020 surrounding a book on priestly celibacy originally published as co-authored by Pope Benedict XVI and Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah. The book, “From the Depths of Our Heart,” was published amid the controversial pan-Amazonian synod and was seen by many as a critique from the former pontiff of Pope Francis’ al...
In January 2019, the Korean-flagged fishing vessel Oyang 77 sailed south toward international waters off Argentina. The vessel had a known history of nefarious activities, including underreporting its catch and illegally dumping low-value fish to make room in its hold for more lucrative catch. At 2 a.m. on Jan. 10, the Oyang 77 turned off its location transponder at the edge of Argentina’s exclusive economic zone – a political boundary that divides Argentina’s national waters from international waters, or the high seas. At 9 p.m. on Jan. 11, the Oyang 77 turned its transponder back on and reappeared on the high seas. For the 19 hours when the ship was dark, no information was available about where it had gone or what it did. In a recent study, I worked with colleagues at Global...
“I’m calling on behalf of the Holy Father.” The priest from New Jersey working in the Vatican prefaced his words with a plea: “Please don’t hang up on me when I say what I’m about to say.” He had learned from experience that day. Someone else thought his call was a prank. It was just a week before the opening Mass of the Year of Faith at St. Peter’s Basilica, also the 50th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council. I was being invited to receive a message for all the women in the world (I kid you not). As the official invite from the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization put it: “The Holy Father has invited you to be present … in order to receive from him a copy of the message as the representative of women throughout the world.” The message was a rep...