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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 ...

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...

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...