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How do parents make travel easier for children with hidden disabilities?
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 ...
Dr. Martin Luther King’s refutation of atheistic materialism…
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...
In MLK Day message, U.S. Catholic bishops say nation needs ‘genuine conversion of heart’…
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 creates all the problems The Equality Act creates, then exempts a few people from those problems, then calls it religious liberty”…
“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 ...
Discernment shouldn’t stop when you enter the seminary…
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...
Catholic parish will not host consecration for Episcopalians after all…
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...
Where virtue falls short, U.S. envoy says money talks on religious freedom…
ROME – While in the abstract it may seem the case for religious freedom and protecting vulnerable religious minorities ought to be based on virtue and morality, the U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom believes something else is bringing governments around today: Cold, hard cash. “If you want to grow an economy and build something,” Sam Brownback told Crux, promoting religious freedom is essential. “Money is a chicken, it won’t go where there’s a conflict,” he said. “You’ve just ruled yourself out of a whole bunch of investment if you’ve given in to this monochromatic view of religion, that it has to be this [way] and everybody else we punish. You’ve just really frozen yourself out of the global economy and you’re not going to grow.” “You’re seeing a lot more govern...
The priests we need to save the Church…
Kevin Wells pleads for the recovering of a Roman Catholic priesthood steeped in the muscular Christianity of bygone days. Invoking especially the memories of his murdered monsignor-uncle, he makes a fervent layman’s appeal for priests to abandon the niceness and complacency that have contributed to the recent woes of the church. The Priests We Need to Save the Church, by Kevin Wells (229 pages, Sophia Institute Press, 2019). Kevin Wells’ monograph was started as a celebration of the priestly ministry of his uncle. Monsignor Thomas Wells was a devout and effectual priest whose ministry was cut short by his untimely murder. While compiling notes and tributes to write about the hallmarks of this pious priest, Mr. Wells unexpectedly found himself writing in the aftermath of the 2018-19 scandal...
Cardinal Dolan conducting ‘Vos estis’ investigation into Brooklyn’s Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio…
New York City, N.Y., Jan 18, 2020 / 09:05 pm (CNA).- Cardinal Timothy Dolan is conducting an investigation into Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, following an allegation of sexual abuse. The investigation is being conducted under the provisions of Vos estis lux mundi, the Church law issued by Pope Francis last year on dealing with accusations against bishops. In a statement released Jan. 18, Joseph Zwilling, director of communications in the Archdiocese of New York, confirmed the investigation. “As directed by Vos estis, Cardinal Dolan earlier notified the Holy See of the allegation that was raised concerning Bishop DiMarzio from his time as a priest in the Archdiocese of Newark. On January 7, 2020, the Cardinal received instruction from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith...
Father Paul Wattson: The Catholic convert who founded the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity…
Every year since 1908, beginning on January 18 and ending on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul on January 25, the Graymoor Institute and the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement have been promoting a focused week of prayer and reflection, asking God to bring unity to the body of Christ. The idea of an octave of prayer for unity among Christians was the brainchild of Servant of God Fr. Paul Wattson, who conceived of it while he was still an Anglican. In a 2016 lecture at St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity in Minnesota, Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson gave a thorough and fascinating presentation on the man behind the International Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which you can watch here: [embedded content]
The Methodists may soon split up — will some become Catholic?
The United Methodist Church is considering a proposal for traditional Methodist communities to leave the church and enter a new denomination. Could some choose the Catholic Church via the Ordinariate? Ten years ago, Benedict XVI issued a new decree that would create three new Catholic dioceses with English Christian patrimony called personal ordinariates and they would also receive Anglican, Methodist, Episcopal and AME congregations, clergy and individuals into the Catholic Church with the richness of their traditions. Benedict XVI’s 2009 apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus began the Ordinariates, which received the first wave of Episcopal and Anglican congregations and clergy in North America, the United Kingdom and Oceania. And these new dioceses have also seen Catholics w...
Mary is the antidote to our anti-life culture…
The notion that women must support abortion has “become part of the cultural air that we breathe,” author Carrie Gress told Our Sunday Visitor. While this was not always the case, abortion has been labeled as the solution for women’s problems — namely the “problems” of children and chastity. In an interview with Our Sunday Visitor, Gress, who received her doctorate in philosophy from The Catholic University of America, explains how we live in a culture that is anti-virgin and anti-mother — ultimately anti-Mary, the Virgin Mother herself. Sharing insights from her most recent book, “The Anti-Mary Exposed” (TAN Books, $27.95), Gress gives hope that our Blessed Mother is the antidote to this culture of death. Our Sunday Visitor: This year’s theme for the March for Life is “Life Empowers: Pro-...
