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Biden says Catholic nuns inspire him to run, plans to sue Little Sisters of the Poor…
CNA Staff, Aug 13, 2020 / 08:30 am MT (CNA).- Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden has released a campaign video in which he credits his Catholic faith, Pope Francis, and the example of nuns for his personal inspiration. The short video was released August 9 on the Democratic National Convention’s Twitter account. Biden’s use of nuns as an inspirational example of “generosity to others” comes despite his promise to renew legal action against the Little Sisters of the Poor should he win election. Biden has promised to remove freedom of conscience protections which exempt the sisters from the “contraceptive mandate,” opening them back up to renewed suits by the federal government for failure to provide contraceptives to their employees. “This is the kind of m...
Could you die for Jesus? We have one way of finding out…..
Christians seem to like this meme. The line usually goes with one of the classic pictures of Christians being martyred. Like the one above, showing Christians in a Roman coliseum as the hungry lion sees them. The line is: “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” It’s funny, and a good reminder of where your faith can take you. But only if you really have enough faith to go all the way. Do we? Would we die for Jesus? We have one way of knowing — that is, as much as we sinful creatures can know. He Could Have Risen to the Top One of the English writer Evelyn Waugh’s great passages gives the answer. It comes in his biography of Edmund Campion. Campion was an enormously gifted young man who could have risen to the top of the English establishment, had he not become a Catholic an...
The Pope may be the key to preserving Italy’s social compact on abortion…
ROME – Italy has enjoyed almost forty years of uneasy political peace on the abortion issue, ever since the procedure was legalized in 1978 during the first 90 days of pregnancy. Two hugely controversial ballot propositions were put up for a vote in 1981, the first seeking to re-criminalize abortion and the other to legalize it with no restrictions at all. Both measures went down in flames, the first by almost 70 percent and the second by nearly 90 percent. Ever since, there’s been a basic social compact: Women and doctors aren’t going to jail over abortion, but it’s not going to be “anything goes” either, and medical personnel who don’t want to be part of an abortion won’t be coerced. The law on abortion adopted in 1978 was numbered 194, and for decades the watchword of Italian politics h...
A priest’s hopeful message for parents of fallen-away Catholics: “Be patient… God is waiting”…
What beautiful and hopeful advice! Fr. Goyo Hidalgo of the Diocese of Los Angeles shared inspiring advice for parents of fallen-away Catholics. He encouraged parents not to lose hope in the battle for their souls. He advised parents to remind their children that God loves them and “is waiting.” Here’s his post below: @FrGoyo, Twitter “During the years I left the church, [my] mom reminded me (every day) that God loves me. After those years, I remembered [and] knew I could go to God. / Parents, be patient with your kids. Remind them that God is always waiting. / One day, they’ll need to remember God loves them. #prodigalKids“ Many users thanked Fr. Goyo for posting this story. Here’s what some people said below: @sisterleonarda, Twitter Sister M. Leonarda wrote, “What a beautiful witness! Th...
The ingenious reason why the Dutch wait less at traffic lights…
[embedded content] Hate waiting at traffic lights? Yeah, me too. Good thing the Netherlands has smarter traffic lights to make sure that happens as little as possible.
Two months on an icebreaker in Antarctica, condensed into five minutes…
[embedded content] Time-lapse of the icebreaker, the Nathaniel B. Palmer, traveling through the Ross Sea, Antarctica. Two months of sequences, condensed into less than five minutes…
Run away from safe schools, safe spaces and safe sex. Seek wholesome and holy dangers instead… …
There is a strong push from President Donald Trump, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, and educators across the country for schools to resume in-person, full-time instruction despite the fears and dangers associated with Covid-19. Even the CDC issued an article recently on the importance of reopening America’s schools this fall, estimating that it is actually more dangerous for children to be out of school than in school due to the “the harms attributed to closed schools on the social, emotional, and behavioral health, economic well-being, and academic achievement of children, in both the short- and long-term.” But part of the debate for Catholics should be, “Was my child safe at school before?” Since safety is the topic of the hour, let’s talk about what’s “safe” and what’s “dangerous.” ...
How St. Clare of Assisi can help us make the most of today’s strange times…
One of the great blessings of the Catholic faith is the awareness we are given of the communion of saints. When we embrace the gift of their active intercessory presence in our lives, we know we are never alone. Getting to know the saints helps keep them close. The more we become familiar with individual stories, experiences, and personalities, the more we might find the lives of the saints coming to be a known, even undeniable part of our lives. This has certainly been the case in my life. But this spiritual gift is not an individualistic one. We’re members of the body of Christ, brothers and sisters together on this road to heaven as Christians. And so while her feast day is more than a month away (Aug. 11), there’s a saint who seems to be stalking me lately, in the best of w...
No longer a clump of cells? Mainstream press stories on unborn use ‘baby’ language…..
<div class="sqs-block embed-block sqs-block-embed" data-block-json="{"hSize":null,"floatDir":null,"url":"https://twitter.com/nursingmedialab/status/1291714311757406209","html":" After so many stories about how bad maternal outcomes are for Black women, I was ready for a happy ending. Still, Ebony Brown-Olaseinde’s story reinforces what we already know about maternity care: the hospital you walk into makes all the difference.https://t.co/arlRPMwgX5 \u2014 L’Infirmi\u00E8re (@nursingmedialab) August 7, 2020 \n","resolveObject":"Tweet","resolvedBy":"twitter","resolved":true,"width":550,"height":null,"type":"rich",&q...
Benedict XVI’s illness is ‘subsiding,’ says Archbishop Georg Gänswein…
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in 2017. (Paul Badde/EWTN/CNA) The Pope Emeritus’ personal secretary says Benedict has suffered a painful skin disease one would “not wish on my worst enemy” but it was never life-threatening. A skin disease that has been afflicting Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is “subsiding” and he is on the mend, his personal secretary Archbishop Georg Gänswein has said. Speaking at a cultural event in the Black Forest over the weekend, Archbishop Gänswein said the rash that could be seen on Benedict’s face had lessened and his medication was reduced a few days ago, according to the Austrian Catholic news site Kath.net citing German media reports. The Pope Emeritus, 93, had been suffering from a bacterial infection of the skin that causes a painful...
San Diego Catholic high school files lawsuit against California governor to reopen in the fall…
St. Augustine High, a Catholic school, and seven families of its students filed a lawsuit Thursday against Gov. Gavin Newsom to allow the school to have in-person learning in the fall. Newsom signed an executive order in July that forbids public and private schools from returning to in-person learning in counties on the state’s COVID-19 watch list, which includes San Diego County. The order requires schools to provide online learning. St. Augustine is an all-boys school with an annual enrollment of 700 students that serves grades 9-12. The school is located in North Park. “At Saints, we don’t believe remote learning is sufficient to provide a quality education our students are entitled to and our families have come to expect,” said St. Augustine Principal James Horne in a statement. “We ar...
Was Beethoven a Catholic believer? The case of the ‘Missa Solemnis’…
Can an unbeliever, a denier of the faith, produce such music as Beethoven did in his Missa Solemnis? It has long been fashionable in music history textbooks to speak of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis as a purely artistic statement that, to be blunt, uses the texts of the Catholic Mass as a convenient springboard for musical experimentation and an idiosyncratic expression of a wholly subjective faith. That Beethoven was not, in every respect, a practicing orthodox Catholic is probably, at this point in time, indisputable. Nevertheless, do we not discern in his music, as in many of his spoken or written comments, a profound Catholic mysticism? No unbeliever, no denier of the faith, could produce such music. Listen to the work of an urbane atheist, Fauré’s Requiem. It is ...
