Ungrateful Iraqi Church fails to appreciate our help in destroying it. Ungrateful Iraqi populace fails to appreciate our drones patrolling their skies and the New Oppressive Regime that is as oppressive as the Old Oppressive Regime. Iraqis, being foreigners, are easily provoked by the absurd notion that we Americans don’t have the right to police their country for them. Lots of foreigners are stupid that way, which just proves we know what’s best for them and are their natural overlords.... Read more

(yes, they do exist) writes about subsidiarity (the basic Catholic teaching that the person closest to the problem should deal with the problem). He writes from the perspective of a Catholic physician: I confess, the discussion of subsidiarity as a “who doesn’t do something” is never enlightening. In conservative circles, no matter what, the veto is that the federal government never will do anything. Yadayadayada. I can write that argument faithfully for any style of conservative. (Unanswered is how the... Read more

A reader writes: My great aunt is a Sister of Charity. She is about 88 years old and her health has rapidly declined in recent months, to the point that she is in hospice care and has very little or no awareness of her surroundings or who she is. She has few relatives nearby, and even if she did she probably would not recognize them. I pray that she be given peace in what are probably her final months and... Read more

Thanks so much for posting my prayer request about my uncle Dan. Just a brief, sad update: He died on Friday night without ever having regained consciousness. His funeral was today. My whole family, especially my aunt, is grateful for your readers’ prayers. May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. And may console those who loved him with his grace, strength and peace through Christ Jesus. Mother Mary,... Read more

A reading from the book of the prophet Orwell: In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to... Read more

She was here on my sufferance. I’ve suffered enough. Since she was not interested in listening, I’m not interested in talking. (Though I must confess I enjoyed some of the rejoinders from readers to her pre-recorded messages. Dale Price, I’m looking at you.) Since she was ostensibly all about the oppression of women, no doubt she will go to PP board and call them on the carpet for lauding forced abortion in China. Oh, wait! Those Chinese women are not... Read more

…for ditching all ties to Murder Inc. Given the ties between abortion and breast cancer, it made as much sense for them to support PP as for the American Lung Association to buddy up with the tobacco lobby. May God hasten the day that Planned Parenthood becomes, like Babylon before it, the haunt of the screech owl and the jackal. May its name be forgotten and its memory erased. Update: Please take a moment today to email [email protected] and THANK... Read more

…with sin. We discuss it over at the Register. Read more

A reader writes: I am a recent convert (within the past year) from Evangelical Protestantism and am married to a man who is nominally Christian. We were recently discussing issues of sexuality and the various moral issues that arise around that subject and my husband, of his own accord, decided to look up “Christian” sexuality. Of course, he got a very wide spectrum of opinion on the subject. When I attempted to explain to him the Catholic position on these... Read more

Sherry Weddell sends along the following: This is a powerful story that I stumbled across last night – of the healing of an African man named Gideon, who was not only blind – he lacked eyeballs. This team watched the eyeballs growing slowing and his eye sight restored in front of them. I’ve heard of these stories before and of course, some saints like St. Vincent Ferrar was the instrument of hundreds of thousands of healing miracles – including raising... Read more