July is the month of the Precious Blood. In the traditional rite, the first day of the month is the feast of that name. In the Roman Martyrology, July 1 also commemorates Aaron the High Priest, the brother of Moses. This liturgical concurrence is appropriate, since Aaron’s priesthood — part of the alliance mediated by Moses — was a priesthood that offered many sacrifices prefiguring Christ’s Precious Blood.
In his Making a Monkey Out of Darwin, the formidable Buchanan reviews a recent book by Eugene Windchy, The End of Darwinism: And How a Flawed and Disastrous Theory Was Stolen and Sold. You gotta give it to Pat; he’s not afraid to slaughter a sacred cow… or …
It would take too long to point out all that’s wrong with Laurie Goodstein’s New York Times piece, “U.S. Nuns Facing Vatican Scrutiny,” so I’ll cut to the chase. The last sentence of the article reads:
But the investigation of American nuns surprised many because there was no obvious precipitating cause.
The same article reports that vocations in the group in question are down from 180,000 in 1965 to 60,000 today. It also mentions that
Brother Francis has taken a downturn. We received news last week that Brother has “a couple of months” to live, due to his worsening aortic valve stenosis. This prognosis is from his very competent cardiologist at Cheshire Medical Center in Keene, New Hampshire. As those who know Brother Francis can well imagine, he is taking the news very “philosophically.” Showing his resignation to the divine providence, he told one of the doctors, “I am in the Hands of God.”
Just after I posted an appreciation of the recent USCCB document clarifying the Church’s teaching on her mission and the Jewish People, I checked my familiar news sources to catch up on what’s going on.
Coincidentally, I discovered that “ADL president Abraham Foxman said that the bishops’ statement might be …
Our beloved Superior, Brother Francis, who will be 96 years old on July 19, is in need of prayers for his health. Brother was in the hospital last week with congestive heart failure, a condition he is prone to because he has long had aortic valve stenosis. He was discharged from Cheshire Medical Center last Friday, the Feast of the Sacred Heart. He is now at home, where the brothers and visiting health-care professionals are attending to him.
If you’ve not read Brian Kelly’s brief and delightful biography of Venerable Solanus Casey, please do yourself the favor. This Irish-American Padre Pio ought to be better known and loved across the nation.
Please Note: if any of our readers know some GM execs, could you please put a bug in their corporate ear? With all the trouble the auto-making giant is having these days, they should be reminded of Venerable Solanus’ past benevolence to Chevrolet, one of General Motors’ subsidiaries. As Brian writes:
Father Kenneth Baker, S. J., has written a short and delightful review of a recent book on Saint Francis of Assisi: “Preach Christ to the Muslims” The volume in review is St. Francis of Assisi and the Conversion of the Muslims, by Frank M. Rega, S.F.O.
These two excerpts are worth savoring:
Trusting absolutely in God and willing to die for the faith, Francis was at first beaten by the guards but eventually taken to the sultan.
Over at Taki’s Magazine, Charles Coulombe playfully takes readers on a fast-paced romp through the unfamiliar (for most people) political spectrum of what is called “Paleoconservatism.” His article, The Old Paleos and the New, seeks to explain the contrasts and often bizarre alliances within this recently-coined label.
Kirkians, Burkeans, the descendants of the Old Right, Monarchists, Strict-Constructionists (like Birchers), devotees of Richard M. Weaver, and even certain Libertarians — all these find a home under the Paleo umbrella.
A magnificent writer, Elizabeth Thecla Mauro, has a passion for the sport, and boy is she good at her craft. Her team? The Yankees. Well, that’ll just have to be overlooked. She finds a nobility in the game and in the players, or in many of them that is, and …
The annual Pilgrimage for Restoration is a sixty-five mile walk from Lake George to the Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, NY. For four days, pilgrims attend Mass together, walk, camp, sing pray, and compare blisters! It’s an unforgettable experience. This year’s dates are Wednesday, September 23 to Saturday, September 26.
This event is not sponsored by Saint Benedict Center, but we participate in it every year, with great enthusiasm. The sponsors are the Company of St. René Goupil, with the…
Judge Roy Moore writes about the queer rage over Proposition 8. Here is the critical paragraph:
The homosexuals’ response to the passage in California of Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman, has been marked by violence, hatred and anti-religious bigotry. Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court struck down Proposition 22, a law passed in 2000 wherein the people of California had declared marriage to be only “between a man and a woman.” Once again voicing their support for traditional marriage this Nov. 4, Californians approved Proposition 8, joining 29 other states where, by an average vote of 67 percent, the biblical definition of marriage has been protected in state constitutions. Proving to be the sorest of losers, thousands of angry homosexuals took to the streets to protest Proposition 8, even attacking Mormon and Christian churches in the process.
Tags: homosexuality, Proposition 8
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So, tell me Brother Andre where is yore christian compassion and love who really are the sore losers? As for myself I have been living in anythig but sin for 28 years and that is a lot more then I can say for more my father who was in a traditional marriage with my mother and found it neccessary to scare the heck out of me constantly with his vulgar tirades and turn my beautiful mother into an emotional wreck a shell along with the rest of us.
Mary Ann: On this issue, I would say my Christian compassion and love consists in two things. First, in telling the truth. “Charity rejoices with the truth” says Saint Paul. Homosexuality is a grave moral problem and its acts are objectively mortally sinful. Holy Scripture could not be more clear, and the infallible teaching of the Catholic Church only affirms it. Second, my compassion and love consist in telling the person who sins that, with the grace of God, he can change, finding his true happiness in Christian faith, hope, and charity — which will ultimately bring him to heaven if he perseveres to the end.
I am sorry about your father and your upbringing in an apparently dysfunctional family. The fact that some “traditional marriages” (i.e., REAL marriages, or those between a man and a woman) are not happy, does not rule out the fact that marriage is defined as the union of one man with one woman. The abuse of a thing does not rule out its proper use (abusus non tollet usus). Police brutality does not argue against the institution of law enforcement. Governmental corruption does not justify anarchy. So, too, bad marriages do not rule out marriage, which was instituted by God as the union of one man with one woman.
Brother Andre Marie: Your response to Mary Ann is the best I have ever heard on this matter. You are the only person I know of besides me who has put in writing that homosexual acts are mortal sins. I think that communicating that is of the utmost importance. I cannot tell you how many Catholics cannot comprehend this, and many are actually shocked when I use the terms “homosexual act” and “mortal sin” in the same sentence. Again, thank you for this post. I hope many will read it.