The Fortnight for Freedom begins on June 21. For the secondtime in as many years, prayers and activities will seek to educate Americansabout current challenges to religious liberty.
One such contest surrounds calls for redefining marriage toinclude homosexual unions. With dimensions that illuminate the broader subjectof sexuality in contemporary culture, the latest push to legalize gay“marriage” presents an opportunity in the days ahead to discuss specificallywhat the Catholic Church...
Rosaries seem so simple to the senses, initially. Eyes find spheres in a circle linked to additional spheres and a crucifix. Ears hear what sounds like chanting. Mouths profess a collection of beliefs at the start, repeat the same three (maybe four) prayers in five successive and identical cycles, and finally hail an unseen queen at the end. Hands touch the spheres to mark progression.
Sensory experiences can comfort even the most faithless heart. The Rosary is no different in that...
Being a father can seem daunting, and at times we fail to say what we mean or do what we say. Thinking about this the other day, I decided to write a letter to my two boys. I would recommend this task for all dads.
Dear boys,
It must seem strange that I am writing you a letter. When you finish reading this you will hopefully understand the reason. First of all, I want you to know your mom and I love you both very much and we could not be prouder of you. We are not perfect parents, but we...
Memorial Day first began as Decoration Day. The Grand Army of the Republic – the group of Union veterans that survived the American Civil War – first established the day in May 1868 to decorate the graves of war dead with flowers. The focus for that day, and the array of activities that had come to define it, expanded after World War I to include all service personnel from all wars who lost their lives in service to the United States.
The Catholic Church has its own version of...
Sickened and horrified but not at all surprised. That’s how veteran pro-life activists have responded to the oh-so-late charges against and murder conviction of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell.
Those who have stood outside of abortion clinics praying or counseling women have known for years that these horrid practices take place unexamined – “snipping” the spines of born babies, placing them in jars, or leaving them in bedpans to wriggle and die unaided. They have stood...
On May 13, 1917, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared for the first time to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal. She shone radiantly before those whom the world initially took no notice – as the Mother of God tends to do – during a year that also saw the rise of Soviet communism and the horrors of World War I. Brutalities inflicted by Russian Bolsheviks and trench warfare, however, only further underscored the Fatima message – the need to pray the Rosary daily and for the...
You can tell from the title that this column will border on the frivolous, but given the tragedies our nation experienced last month, which still leave open wounds, I thought that a brief treatment of a light topic may be appropriate.
If you’re a person of a certain age who listened to radio in the ‘70s, or are younger but have heard your parents play those “oldies,” you may be familiar with the group Captain & Tennille. The star was Toni Tennille, a tall, thin, perky singer whose...
Among the many admirable accolades that the late Margaret Thatcher accumulated over 30 years in public life, perhaps none looms larger or longer in memory than her nickname. In January 1976, a Soviet military officer used the phrase “Iron Lady” to profile Thatcher. But words intended only to alarm old men in the Politburo instead captivated audiences around the world to a broader fact – here was a woman who could (and eventually would) defeat a Cold War adversary, and wouldn’t...
My 8-year-old son will receive his First Holy Communion next month, so I was struck with an overflowing sense of empathy when I saw the online image of the 8-year-old boy in his First Communion suit who was killed in the Boston Marathon bombing. That could have been my boy in the picture, dressed in a white tie and jacket, smiling innocently while standing outside the church, holding an art project with symbols of the sacrament – chalice, bread, host – very similar to the First...
My seventh-grade son is covering the Constitution and government structure in History class. While driving to school the other day, we were reviewing the division of powers between federal and state levels. Federal powers are “delegated,” that is, carefully circumscribed and limited to those defined in the Constitution. To underscore this point, we kept going over the Tenth Amendment, the key to understanding the balance: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the...
