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…
File this one under D for “Duh.” Mr. Carl Djerassi is an octogenarian who has the unenviable distinction of having made a key discovery in the creation of the pill. He is now saying, in effect, that it was all a mistake. Europe’s demographic decline — a “horror scenario” and a “catastrophe” in Djerassi’s book — is largely attributable to the genocidal pharmaceutical he helped invent.
He further laments that, in Europe, there is “no connection at all between sexuality and reproduction,” even in his own “Catholic Austria.” The great scientist has discovered what some knew all along: separate the two ends of matrimony and you breed pandemic vice that is nearly irreversible. And you don’t breed humans, at least not in sufficient quantity.
Better late than never, I guess, but this was predictable. Indeed, this “catastrophe” was predicted by anti-onanism Catholic voices, including Pope Paul VI.
When people are asking “where have all the children gone?” as all the horrors of the demographic winter set in, it would seem cruel for the Church to say, “I told you so.” Yet she has every right to. Those who think her “backward” and an “enemy of progress” will likely not be lining up en masse to point out how right she has been all along.
The Church’s magisterial office is a prophetical charism, and prophets have the horrible burden of telling people things they need to know but don’t like to hear.
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not? Behold, your house shall be left to you, desolate” (Matt. 23:37-38).
Tags: birth control, Carl Djerassi
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