The Internal Revenue Service has agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) after unlawfully releasing the conservative organization’s 2008 tax return to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group. NOM, which was one of the organizers of the March for Marriage on June 19, works to defend the institution of marriage at the local, state and national levels. They work with legislators, by informing voters when they head to the ballot box, and... Read more
Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki, Bishop of Springfield in Illinois, issued a pastoral letter on June 22 on liturgy and adoration. Titled “Ars celebrandi et adorandi“, the letter addresses the art of celebrating the liturgy properly and adoring the Lord in the Eucharist devoutly. In the letter, Bishop Paprocki cites Fr. Robert Barron, who often speaks about the role of beauty in attracting people to the Church. He uses Father Barron’s analogy from baseball to make his point. He notes that you... Read more
The hate group we love to hate, the Westboro Baptist Church, turned out June 20 to picket the funeral of Father Kenneth Walker FSSP, the priest who was slain in an attempted robbery in Phoenix. Catholic News Agency has the story: Faithful who attended the funeral for Father Kenneth Walker were dismayed at the presence of picketers from the Westboro Baptist Church on June 20 near Paxico, Kansas. As mourners filed into Sacred Heart Catholic Church, members of the hate... Read more
You know Mitch Albom. You probably read his best selling Tuesdays with Morrie or The First Phone Call from Heaven. According to his official bio, Albom is “…an internationally renowned and best-selling author, journalist, screenwriter, playwright, radio and television broadcaster and musician. His books have collectively sold more than 35 million copies worldwide; have been published in forty-nine territories and in forty-five languages around the world; and have been made into Emmy Award-winning and critically-acclaimed television movies.” And if you’re in... Read more
At 3:30 this afternoon, Michigan’s Governor Rick Snyder will sign into law the Breastfeeding Anti-Discrimination Act, which will ensure women’s right to breastfeed their babies in public. SB 674 is intended to normalize breastfeeding and give mothers protection when providing human milk for their infants. The issue of breastfeeding has been controversial in Michigan. In 2011, a “flash mob” of a dozen breastfeeding moms were interrupted by mall security at the upscale Somerset Mall in Troy. According to Sheknows.com: A... Read more
I first met Kevin Knight a few years ago, when he and I were both attending a conference of the Catholic Marketing Network. I think we were in Chicago, but Kevin may step in to correct that–we met in some hotel lobby, then spent a little time chatting in the bar. A few years later, we met again–this time in Baltimore for the Bishops and Bloggers Meeting, hosted by USCCB in conjunction with their General Assembly. (Check out that photo,... Read more
Last week I wrote about the minimum wage–looking at a comparison drawn by Bloomberg between Walmart and Costco, suggesting that Walmart ought to adopt Costco’s business model and pay its employees a living wage. In “The Bishops’ Love Affair With Raising the Minimum Wage”, I was critical of what I considered well-intentioned but ill-founded solutions proposed for elevating people from poverty by enforcing a higher minimum wage. The quick-fix solution proposed by Obama would, I said, lead to higher unemployment... Read more
Free will, scientists at UC-Davis claim, may be nothing more than the result of background noise in the brain. A study published in April in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience purports to show that humans’ decisions can be predicted based on patterns of brain activity in the minutes before the choice is placed before them. According to The Independent, The brain has a normal level of so-called background noise; the researchers found that the pattern of activity in the... Read more
“They are not in communion with God, they are excommunicated.” –Pope Francis, speaking of the Calabrian mafia Pope Francis had strong words for the mafia during his visit to the southern Italian region of Calabria on Saturday. In his homily for the feast of Corpus Domini, he accused the mafioso of “adoration of evil and contempt for the common good.” “Those who in their lives have taken this evil road,” the Pope said, “…this road of evil, such as the... Read more
Associated Press has issued an apology for its errant reporting regarding claims of a mass grave for children of unwed mothers on the grounds of Tuam Home, an Irish home for unwed mothers. Since the disturbing story broke early this month regarding the Tuam Home for unwed mothers in Ireland, where 796 babies were purportedly “dumped into a septic tank”, the Patheos bloggers have been on the case. I had, early on, been concerned that the facts might not be... Read more
Seasons of Grace
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