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Election 2020: What U.S. presidential candidates are doing to court religious voters…
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump and his Democratic opponents are courting voters with less than a year before the 2020 election – and many of them are chasing support from a variety of religious voters. The Trump campaign announced last week that the president’s re-election efforts would include launching three coalitions: “Evangelicals for Trump,” “Catholics for Trump” and “Jewish Voices for Trump.” Despite being impeached by the House, the Trump campaign’s focus on these three religious groups aims to expand the president’s support, especially in battleground states where the former real-estate mogul won in 2016. An analysis of the 2018 midterm elections conducted by Pew Research Center found continuity in the voting patterns of key religious groups. For example, white evangelica...
Cardinal Pell’s Christmas in prison…
The Melbourne Assessment Prison in West Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, where Cardinal George Pell remains imprisoned in solitary confinement. (Canley [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]) Sources tell the Register that the cardinal, whose appeal of his conviction for sexual abuse is now being considered by Australia’s High Court, is enduring difficult conditions in solitary confinement. VATICAN CITY — Cardinal George Pell may be allowed to receive Holy Communion in his prison cell on Christmas Day but he will still not be permitted to celebrate Mass, sources close to the cardinal have told the Register this week. Since the cardinal was jailed and placed in solitary confinement in February, the Melbourne Assessment Prison where he is imprisoned has forbidden the ...
‘O Radix Jesse’: An Old Testament prophecy of the Messiah…
O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum,super quem continebunt reges os suum,quem Gentes deprecabuntur:veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare. O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples;before you kings will shut their mouths,to you the nations will make their prayer:Come and deliver us, and delay no longer. It may be that today’s O Antiphon reveals an unfamiliar title for Christ: Radix Jesse, or Root of Jesse. Who is Jesse? Why is Christ the root of this man? In 1 Samuel we learn that Jesse, the son of Obed and the grandson of Ruth, had eight sons, and the youngest was David. During the reign of King Saul, the Prophet Samuel was sent by God the Bethlehem to anoint the next king of Israel. David was summoned from the flocks he was tending, and was anointed by Samuel (1 Sam...
Richard Dawkins means well, but he simply is not (and never will be) a thinker for adults…
Some writers struggle for years to achieve a proper harmony in their work between style and substance. For some, that precious concinnity remains elusive till the end. So it is always something of a happy surprise when an author discovers his or her ideal idiom in the twilight of a long career. In a sense, Richard Dawkins has always been a writer of books for children—or, at any rate, for readers with childish minds—but not until now, it seems, has it occurred to him to write explicitly as a children’s author. Tο this point, he has made a good living out of a relative paucity of gifts. As a third-tier zoologist, a popularizer of both scientific truths and pseudo-scientific speculations, and a tireless enemy of all religious beliefs (whether he understands them or not), he has gone far on a...
A review of ‘Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker’…
Disney’s conclusion to the expanded Skywalker saga goes long on nostalgia, short on surprises. Steven D. Greydanus What should Star Wars be? Not what was it 40 or 20 years ago, but what should it be today? Five films into the Disney era of Star Wars, with a completed third trilogy ostensibly bringing the Skywalker saga to an end, there are two conflicting ideas — neither of which, as yet, definitively has the upper hand. One vision immerses us in a warm bath of nostalgia; another dashes revisionistic cold water in our faces. The former is a gauzy slideshow tour of well-known characters and types, locations, images, themes and story beats; the latter, a demolition project in the pursuit of renovation, of change and growth. J.J. Abrams’ Episode VII — The Force Awakens, which kicked off the n...
5 years after desecration by ISIS, cathedral in Iraq’s largest Christian town to be rebuilt in 2020…
Mosul, Iraq, Dec 19, 2019 / 03:01 am (CNA).- The Great Al-Tahira Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Bakhdida remains charred black inside, five years after the Islamic State plundered and set it aflame; however, in 2020 the Syriac Catholic cathedral will be restored as Iraq’s largest Christian community fights to rebuild and regain what was lost. “It is a very significant church because it was built from the donations of local people, agriculture workers,” Fr. Georges Jahola, a parish priest from Bakhdida, told CNA. Bakhdida, also known as Qaraqosh, is located 20 miles southeast of Mosul. Fr Jahola said that the local Christians hope that in the future their town will be referred to as as Bakhdida, the Aramaic and more historic name of their town, rather than Qaraqosh, a Turkish name that ...
My Lord, My Companion
As I stand on the world’s highest mountains, I know You are with me As I walk in the world’s deepest valleys, I know You are there As I sail on the world’s deepest seas, I know You are by my side As I view the endless blue waters, I am reminded of Your eternal love As I walk in the world’s thickets forests, I know You are by my side As I cast my eyes on the blue endless skies, I am reminded of Your infinite love As I cross the world’s largest deserts, I know You care for me As I look at the landscapes, I am glad for You created them all As I travel the world’s greatest cities, Your company keeps me whole As I fly in the world’s biggest planes, Your presence comforts me As I take a walk in the countryside, You keep me company As I inhale the spring scented morning breeze, I know You will al...
Father’s Love Letter – Almighty God
A Love Letter from our Heavenly Father. Father’s Love Letter – Almighty God
Mother’s Love
The loveliest materpiece of the heart of God is the love of a Mother. -St. Therese of Lisieux
A Mother’s Forgiveness
A Mother’s love has the ability to FORGIVE even the most difficult child. -Author Unknown
The Sin of Lying
Lying—almost everybody does it and for a variety of reasons. But how does God view it, and what can we do about it? Raphael Ferraz/Unsplash No one is immune from lying. It makes no difference whether one is a scientist, a journalist, a business professional, a college student, a spouse, a city worker or even, yes, a Christian. Almost everyone lies, sometimes several times a day. When I was in the third grade, my father gave me a subscription to National Geographic magazine for my birthday. He wanted me to see beyond my immediate world to a much greater realm. From that time in 1955 to the present, my family and I have not missed an issue of National Geographic except for the three years I was without much money in college. National Geographic opened my eyes to our planet in the way my fath...
Accident or Intelligent Design?
Accident or Intelligent Design? Science and the Origin of Life The debate over human origins has intensified, hitting the mainstream media like a tsunami. The debate is really about God, and whether or not our origins are explainable without him. Atheists such as Richard Dawkins are attempting to prove that science and belief in God are incompatible. Their premise is that the material world is all that exists. And if science has eliminated God as the source of all life, then the late materialist Stephen Jay Gould was correct in his view: “Human life is the result of a “glorious evolutionary accident” Stephen Jay Gould But new insights into our universe belie such a simplistic view. Quantum mechanics has revealed that our material world is based upon an invisible world of subatomic particle...
