Blogs
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The Gosnell trial unmasked the horrific violence of abortion and the terrible exploitation of poor women that often comes with it. It reminded us of what abortion is…the destruction of babies before, and now in some documented cases, after they are born.
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Speaking on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the chairman of the USCCB's Committee on International Justice and Peace said the Obama administration's policy of targeted killings by drones raise “serious moral questions,” including concerns related to discrimination, imminence of threat, proportionality and probability of success. Bishop Richard E.
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No matter how upset an author may be by a review of his or her book, the conventional wisdom is not to write a letter in response. The letter will only draw more attention to the critical review, and the author is likely to come across as petty and defensive.
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Almost two years after its Advent 2011 introduction, the new Missal is still generating unhappiness among U.S. Catholic priests, according to a new survey which found "widespread skepticism" about the litrugy revisions. According to the study, 59 percent of the 1,500 priests surveyed "do not like" the new text. By a nearly identical margin (57 percent to 36 percent), the survey found that priests do not like the more formal style of language, with over one-third (35 percent) strongly...
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I have read and re-read Dr Stacie Beck’s article, "Just Economics." I still wonder who these Catholic “social justice advocates” are whom Dr. Beck is criticizing. She names only a fourth grade religion text.
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In the first installment, I set out the traditional Greco-Roman letter format and looked at the “Judases” and “Jameses” in the New Testament. In the second installment, I weighed the arguments on authorship and decided the best evidence points in the direction of the Judas/Jude who is the brother of Jacob/...
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As the conflict in Syria reached new depths of depravity this week, the Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III Younan, expressed his frustration with Western powers in an interview with Doreen Abi Raad of Catholic New Service in Beirut. Describing the morale of Syria's Christians as "very, very low," he charged that the worsening conditions in Syria were the result of Western nations carrying...
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From the May 18, 1963 edition of America, a playful poem on the reaction to Pope John XXIII's encyclical, Pacem In Terris. The author, John Cogley, was an editor at Commonweal and an adviser to the Kennedy presidential campaign.
"How To Read an Encyclical"
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Unwilling to live with the horror of burning children, a consequence of U.S. napalm bombings in Vietnam, a group of Catholic peace activists decided to make a bold attempt to end the war—or at least slow down its buildup. On May 17, 1968, two women and seven men, including two priests (Dan and Phil Berrigan), entered the Selective Service Office in Catonsville, Md., seized nearly 400 1-A draft files and burned them in a nearby parking lot with homemade napalm. Martin Sheen has called the...
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The most common question I’m asked as a Jesuit (besides “What’s a Jesuit?”) is: Can you teach me how to pray? While many people have less time for organized religion, they are more hungry for contact with God. Plus, whether they’re religious, spiritual but not religious, or spiritual and religious, most people tend to think that they don’t pray “right.” People sometimes think that everyone else has a lock on prayer. All everyone else does, they think, is close their eyes...