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Mastercard and Visa said they had prohibited the use of their cards on the adult website Pornhub, after the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof reported that the platform included videos of child abuse and rape. Both companies had started investigations this week into their financial ties with MindGeek, the parent company of Pornhub. Mastercard said in a statement on Thursday that the investigation “confirmed violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site,” which prompted the company to terminate the acceptance of its cards on the site. In a separate statement, Visa said, “We are instructing the financial institutions who serve MindGeek to suspend processing of payments through the Visa network,” pending the completion of its investigation. Nearly seven millio...

By Fr. Victor Feltes This week, on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception and the 150th anniversary of the proclamation of St. Joseph as patron of the Universal (that is, the entire) Church, Pope Francis declared this “The Year of St. Joseph” through December 8th, 2021. The Holy Father also published an apostolic letter about Jesus’ beloved foster-father entitled “Patris Corde” (or “With a Father’s Heart”). In it, Pope Francis writes about Christian devotion to this great saint and mentions how the phrase “Go to Joseph” has an Old Testament origin. These are five of my personal reflections on St. Joseph. Go to Joseph In the Book of Genesis, during a time of famine across the known world, the Egyptians begged their pharaoh for bread. He in turn replied, “Go to Joseph and do whatever he ...

After my wife, Renee, passed on from cancer in 1992—at the startlingly young age of 27—I did a lot of grieving. One of the things that helped me through that process was listening to the music of two Christian recording artists. I’ve mentioned them a few times on Catholic Answers Live when people call in who are dealing with personal losses, and I thought I’d blog about them in hopes that the information could be helpful to others. I’m not impressed by a lot of artists, but I am by these two. They’re both very talented musicians and songwriters—and not just about grieving. Their music deals with a lot of situations from life and is well worth listening to whether you’re grieving or not! Their names are Mark Heard and Billy Sprague. Both artists are Evangelicals (or, I should say, Mark Hear...

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CNA Staff, Dec 10, 2020 / 07:01 pm MT (CNA).- The doctrine committee of the US bishops’ conference (USCCB) earlier this year produced a guide to evaluating the lyrics of hymns on the basis of their doctrinal content, noting that Vatican II declared sacred music’s purpose to be “the glory of God and the sanctification of the faithful.” “Christian tradition, both Eastern and Western, has from antiquity been acutely aware that hymns and other songs are among the most significant forces in shaping – or misshaping – the religious and theological sensibility of the faithful,” the committee wrote in “Catholic Hymnody at the Service of the Church,” which is dated September 2020. “It is all the more important, then, that hymnody selected for the liturgical life of the Church successfully draw out t...

By Tom Hoopes, December 10, 2020 This Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent, Year B, Gaudete Sunday, Jesus is still absent from Sunday’s Gospel, but nonetheless the Church says “rejoice.” The readings even give the key to rejoicing: humility. It’s a paradox we easily miss. We can’t be joyful without being humble — and we can’t be humble unless we are “humiliated” according to Mother Teresa and “despised” according to St. Gregory the Great. Only one person in the Gospel reading today is more humble than John the Baptist. John is placed before us again as a great example of humility in his life, message and self-understanding. He eats bugs in the desert dressed in a hide, repeats “Repent!” to his audiences, and endlessly proclaims “I am not the Christ.” “I am not the Christ” means “I am no...