Mark O’Neill served in Afghanistan in the U.S. Army and continues his service as a Catholic Voice, helping to make the case for the Church in the public square. What does the Fortnight mean to you? The Fortnight is an opportunity to pause and reflect on our heritage of religious freedom here in the United States. I see it as a period of prayer and public action that emphasizes “our first, most cherished liberty.” A liberty guaranteed by the First... Read more
Speaking of Saint Josemaria Escriva on his feast day this past week, Timothy Cardinal Dolan talked about Escriva and his message of universal sanctification. Cardinal Dolan said, in part: The universal call to holiness is perhaps his greatest legacy. That all of us baptized members of his Church who consider ourselves to be redeemed by the Most Precious Blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ are called to sanctity, to perfection, to the pursuit of heroic virtue, to cast... Read more
I was just preparing for a panel at the National Right to Life Committee annual convention today and was rereading this exchange I had recently with Austen Ivereigh, author of How to Defend the Church Without Raising Your Voice (and co-founder of Catholic Voices, which I have mentioned once or twice). I think it is very much worth further reflection: LOPEZ: “Behind every criticism of the Church, however apparently hostile or prejudiced, is an ethical value,” you write. “The critic,”... Read more
This seems appropriate to quote; it is part of the picture: The content of the spiritual life is defined for Christians by fulfilling obligations of love towards their neighbor — but those obligations do not arise from a doctrine of human rights: they derive from the command of Christ. The difference is crucial: when Christians come to regard the service of their brothers and sisters as a response to their demands and rights as humans (commonly part of the vocabulary... Read more
On the eighth day of the Fortnight of Freedom, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on an aspect of the president’s health-care law, and religious freedom remained in peril in the United States. Allison Baughman, a young Catholic Voice from Connecticut, talks about her call at this time. What does the Fortnight mean to you? The Fortnight for Freedom in my eyes is an extremely prayer-filled, hopeful attempt to overturn any governmental law impeding religious rights. I believe we... Read more
We’re in Day 7 of the Fortnight of Freedom and here I continue to share some of the young people I’ve been able to spend time with thanks to Catholic Voices USA, a new effort based on a successful British model to better equip lay people to answer the call to be defenders of the Church in the public square, with love and joy. Yesterday you met Melissa. This morning, Domenick Canale, who works in real-estate property management and at start-up... Read more
Via Blessed John Paul II: My sons and daughters, you have pointed out at your Congress the sufferings and the contradictions by which a society is seen to be overwhelmed when it moves away from God. The wisdom of Christ makes you capable of pushing on to discover the deepest source of evil existing in the world. And it also stimulates you to proclaim to all men, your companions in study today, and in work tomorrow, the truth you have... Read more
The Fortnight of Freedom continues during a historic week in the United States, as we all await the Supreme Court’s ruling on the president’s health care law. Whatever happens Thursday, conscience rights remain unprotected in the U.S., and the education and prayers of these 14 days will remain a service to all Americans who value freedom itself. Catholic Voices USA is a new effort based on a British model to make the case for the Church in the public square.... Read more
A revert to Catholicism talks about the power of the sacrament of Confession: I was a young man, and now intensely interested in women and related matters. As high school went on, I began to party more and pray less. My faith dwindled. When I got to college, I threw myself into two things: partying and philosophy. The mix was a deadly cocktail for what little faith I had left, and within months of being in college I lost my... Read more
Via the USCCB: The religious acts whereby men, in private and in public and out of a sense of personal conviction, direct their lives to God transcend by their very nature the order of terrestrial and temporal affairs. Government, therefore, ought indeed to take account of the religious life of the people and show it favor, since the function of government is to make provision for the common welfare. However, it would clearly transgress the limits set to its power... Read more
Kathryn Lopez
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