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...
As abortion-supporters brace for another year of restrictions and court battles, Planned Parenthood is throwing its weight into the 2020 elections. This week, Planned Parenthood launched the biggest electoral effort in its history: a $45 million spend to support presidential, congressional and state-level candidates in the 2020 elections who support abortion rights. Jenny Lawson, the Planned Parenthood Votes Executive Director, said, “The stakes have never been higher.” “[The Trump Administration} has managed to undo so much over the last three years,” Lawson said in an exclusive interview with CBS News. “The fact that this summer the Supreme Court might gut Roe v. Wade is an indicator of their intention and they’ve never been so bold.” The Battle ...
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...
On one level, this week’s think piece is not about religion. Then again, it is a personal and transparent piece from The Seattle Times — written by GetReligion contributor Julia Duin, a veteran religion-beat professional. It’s a piece about what it’s like to travel with one or more children with “hidden disabilities.” She is talking about PTSD, autism, anxiety disorders and other intense conditions that, to be blunt, may not immediately be obvious to people at nearby restaurant tables, in lines at theater parks or jammed into adjacent airplane seats. OK, what about people of various ages who are settled in for peace and quiet, or even transcendence, in a nearby pew during Mass? So read Duin’s article and picture that scene in your mind. Look for the situations that religious leaders of all...
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...
10 years after Vatican reform, Legion in new abuse crisis By MARIA VERZA and NICOLE WINFIELD January 20, 2020 GMT https://apnews.com/d71dbfb06b1065b2e9f910c2581371e2 MEXICO CITY (AP) — The administrator of the elite Catholic school in Cancun, Mexico, used to take the girls out of class and send them to the chapel, where the priest from the Legion of Christ religious order would sexually abuse them. “As some were reading the Bible, he would rape the others in front of them, little girls aged 6 to 8 or 9,” said one of his victims, Ana Lucia Salazar, now a 36-year-old Mexican television host and mother of three. “Afterward, nothing was the same, nothing went back to the way it was,” she said through tears at her home in Mexico City. Salazar’s horrific story, which has been corroborated by oth...
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 ...
I am reposting this article since we are discussing it on EWTN’s Morning Glory radio show. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we commemorate today, is best known as a civil rights leader who worked to end racial injustice, but he had other things to say as he preached each Sunday, first in his own assembly and later as he spoke around the country. Among his recorded sermons is one in which Dr. King addressed the problem of unbelief, of materialism and atheism. His reflections are well worth pondering today because the problem is even more widespread now than it was when he made these remarks in 1957. A complete transcript of the sermon is available here: The Man Who Was a Fool. In this sermon, Dr. King commented on Jesus’ parable of the wealthy man who had a huge harvest and, inst...
Washington D.C., Jan 20, 2020 / 03:37 am (CNA).- The example of Martin Luther King, Jr., is still sorely needed in the United States, given continued injustices, racism and discrimination against minorities, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a message for MLK Day. “As our nation prepares to commemorate the life and witness of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., we are grateful for his courageous stand in solidarity with all who suffer injustice and his witness of love and nonviolence in the struggle for social change,” Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Jan. 16. “But we are once again painfully aware that we are still far off from his dream for America, the ‘beloved community’ for which he gave his life.” King is remembe...
“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 ...
4 Seminarians walking (Catholic Church of England and Wales CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) The purpose of discernment is action. The purpose of discerning if you are called to the priesthood is to either be set on the path of ordination or set on the path to marriage. Someone may ask whether all discernment should come before entering the Seminary. Recently, a story about those who had discerned out of the seminary lead some people I know to wonder if such discernment should be done before the seminary. I thought I should give a brief explainer about why discernment should not finish before the seminary. I’ve not worked extensively in a seminary but base this on my own experience and experiences shared by those I’ve known. My goal is not to explain every point about seminary discernment but to point out...
Richmond, Va., Jan 17, 2020 / 11:30 am (CNA).- The Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia will no longer hold a bishops’s consecration at a Catholic parish in Williamsburg, after an internet petition objecting to the event drew national attention. “It is with great sadness that I have received a letter from Bishop-Elect Susan Haynes stating that, due to the controversy of the proposed use of St. Bede Catholic Church for her consecration of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia, she has decided to find another location for the ceremony to take place,” Bishop Barry Knestout of the Catholic Richmond diocese said in a Jan. 17 statement. St. Bede Catholic Church is located within the Diocese of Richmond. A statement from the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia said tha...