From a press release issued today: The Marriage Reality Movement announced Sunday, World Marriage Day, that it has named Saints Louis and Zélie Martin, the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the patron saints of the Movement. “Saints Louis and Zélie Martin are the perfect patron saints for the Marriage Reality Movement,” said Executive Director Richard Caron. “They offer an exemplary model of marriage as God intended it: a vocation to life and love.” Louis and Zélie Martin are the... Read more
This seems noteworthy to me: Though Republicans like to think of themselves as the party that cuts waste, fraud, and abuse, Democrats, too, propose putting the ax to programs that they’d like to see go away. Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2017 budget proposal is no exception. Though it generally offers higher levels of government spending than Republicans favor, that doesn’t mean Obama loves every program the government runs. In fact, he’s proposing to entirely eliminate dozens of initiatives — often... Read more
It happened while he was greeting people in the crowd Tuesday. From Aleteia: Unable to read lips, we nevertheless get the impression that His Holiness Pope Francis has made it clear that there is a line, and it has been crossed. UPDATE: From our Spanish edition, we get a translation: “¡Por favor! ¿Qué te pasó? ¡No seas egoísta! ¡No seas egoísta!” “Please! What is happening to you? Don’t be selfish! Don’t be selfish!” See below. Read more
You may remember the faculty voted for him to be removed last week. But he says he’s not going: The president of a Catholic college in Maryland is rejecting the faculty’s demand for his resignation. Mount St. Mary’s University President Simon Newman told scores of cheering students at a rally Monday in Emmitsburg, “I’m not going to stop.” The faculty voted overwhelmingly Friday to ask Newman to resign by Monday morning. The request followed an uproar over his plan to... Read more
From the BBC: Hundreds of letters and photographs that tell the story of Pope John Paul II’s close relationship with a married woman, which lasted more than 30 years, have been shown to the BBC. The letters to Polish-born American philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka had been kept away from public view in the National Library of Poland for years. The documents reveal a rarely seen side of the pontiff, who died in 2005. There is no suggestion the Pope broke his... Read more
TIME magazine notes that when Antonin Scalia was appointed to the Supreme Court, Catholics were a distinct minority there. Now, they are a majority, and Scalia’s influence, often informed by his Catholic faith and Jesuit education, has been significant: Richard Garnett, a professor of law at Notre Dame, recalls that Scalia was appointed during a time when Catholic justices were so rare that people still talked about there being a designated “Catholic seat” on the bench. During Scalia’s three-decade tenure,... Read more
The late Supreme Court justice in 2010 gave a stemwinder of a speech in Maryland, in which he called on Christians to be “fools for Christ’s sake.” He also gave an interview to The Catholic Review‘s George Matysek, Jr. and shared some additional thoughts on his role on the court: While he may take his personal faith seriously, Scalia told The Catholic Review he doesn’t allow it to influence his work on the high court. “I don’t think there’s any... Read more
From The Times of Malta: Malta will not be getting permanent deacons anytime soon as their introduction – announced by then Archbishop Paul Cremona – has been put “on hold” pending “further discernment” by the ecclesiastical authorities. A Church spokesman confirmed this when asked by The Sunday Times of Malta if there had been second thoughts on this decision as no further announcements had been made since Mgr Cremona’s statement 16 months ago. On October 10, 2014, the then Archbishop... Read more
The sudden death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a Catholic, raises an interesting question. According to news reports: An El Paso source close to Justice Antonin Scalia tells ABC-7 that the 79-year-old died in his sleep last night after a day of quail hunting at Cibolo Creek Ranch outside of Marfa, Texas. The Justice did not report feeling ill and retired to his room after dinner. The source, who was traveling with Scalia, told ABC-7 an El Paso priest... Read more
Those who have been following this unfolding scandal may not find this news surprising: The faculty of a Catholic Maryland university voted overwhelmingly to unseat their embattled president, who crassly compared to struggling freshman to bunnies that need to be shot while announcing a controversial plan to offer tuition refunds to failing students who choose to leave on in the semester. Mount St. Mary’s University faculty voted 87-3 Friday night to ask Simon Newman to resign. The condemning vote came... Read more
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