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By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio – articles – email ) | Jan 17, 2020 When my children were young and played games together, my younger daughter sometimes infuriated the others when, after she had lost a game, she would declare: “In my mind, I won.” She wasn’t completely serious, but she certainly frustrated the winners. But wait: We live in a society in which a great many people do the same thing and believe it. This frustrates me, too. I am referring not to games but to life. We live in an era in which people seem to think that reality is whatever the make up in their own heads, and that they are really winning when they make extraordinarily bad choices. Willfulness—even if it often arises from a herd mentality—is rampant. It seems that we may believe whatever we want (at least as long...

Sometimes I decide what I’m going to write about. And sometimes God does. I just came back from the FOCUS conference in Phoenix. It was awesome, incidentally, and I highly recommend that you all look into it for next year. Yes, it is sponsored by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students. And yes, there are a lot of college kids there. But there is also a marvelous adult track, with wonderful speakers and fabulous activities.  But I digress. The very first speaker was Father Mike Schmitz, and the theme of his talk was that Jesus is not “optional.” It was a wonderful talk and gave me so much spiritual food for thought. I wrote “Jesus is not optional” in my little column ideas list. Then I came home and went to a movie. The movie, A Hidden Life, was about Franz Jagerstatter, the Au...

ROME – Canadian Jesuit Michael Czerny, made a cardinal by Pope Francis last October, became the titular pastor of a parish in the outskirts of Rome on Sunday. During his homily, he spoke to the thousands gathered – many of whom were migrants – about his own family fleeing war and finding refuge in North America. “My family of four fled from post-war Czechoslovakia,” Czerny said. “We arrived in Canada by ship in the year 1948. This life experience of ours was immortalized in advance in the Flight into Egypt painted on glass by my maternal grandmother, Anna Hayek Löw.” Long after his grandmother created that work of art, the life experience has continued to shape Czerny’s ministry and work, to the point that his new coat of arms depicts a boat with a family of four. This image, he said, repr...

You’ve seen them at the airport, at the beach or in a restaurant. A child is thrashing or kicking or on the ground while a desperate parent hovers nearby, trying to ignore angry glances from passersby. I know because I’ve been that anguished parent. On display are “cognitive disabilities,” invisible handicaps related to how children’s brains work. For many kids with cognitive disabilities or developmental disorders, a car can be a prison, a plane or a new hotel room can be sheer terror. In the past, families were stuck, barely venturing outside the county, certainly not on an overnight trip. Travel meant potential trauma minefields, and unfortunately, we live in a world where bystanders are more apt to call the police or Child Protective Services than offer help to the parents. “You’re in ...

“The Fairness for All Act essentially creates all the problems that The Equality Act creates, and then exempts a handful of people from those problems, and then they call that a victory for religious liberty,” said Greg Baylor,  “The Fairness for All Act essentially creates all the problems that The Equality Act creates, and then exempts a handful of people from those problems, and then they call that a victory for religious liberty,” said Greg Baylor, senior counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom. “I would say it’s a victory for religious liberty not to create the problems in the first place.” Baylor is a previous guest on Respect Life Radio, where he discussed The Equality Act , which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in May ...