Very disturbing story. Read more
Very disturbing story. Read more
The abortion rate has fallen 25% since 1991 and is at its lowest rate in 30 years! This news is something BOTH sides should celebrate. Note, it went from 1.6 million to 1.2 million. How odd that we are happy it is only 1.2 million children, but hey, it could be worse! One point ignored by the article and other media, is that less teens are having sex. And those who are having sex, are using contraception. As we can... Read more
Pam, from the Exceptional Marriages blog, emailed asking for prayer. She took her little 2 year old son into the doctor’s office yesterday because he was under the weather and the doctor immediately hospitalized him. He underwent one blood transfusion and one platelet transfusion! They suspect leukemia. Please, keep this family in your prayers. For the full story, read here. St. Peregrine, we ask for your intercessory prayers for Pam’s 2 year old baby. Amen. Read more
Because of my series on Gnosticism, and the fact that Saint Anthony is my patron saint (chosen at chrismation), I thought I would offer this semi-appropriate selection from Flaubert’s The Temptation of Saint Anthony to honor St Anthony’s feast. ANTHONY Then what is the Word? … What was Jesus? THE VALENTINIANS He was the husband of Acharamoth repentant! THE SETHIANS He was Shem, the son of Noah! THE THEODOTIANS He was Melchisedech! THE MERINTHIANS He was only a man! (more…) Read more
I have been reading a most fascinating book, Cynthia Stokes Brown’s Big History: From the Big Bang to the Present. The book is by no means flawless. Her account of what we would call recorded history is sometimes shallow, and tinged with a typical secular distaste for religion, especially Christianity. But her account of the history of creation until this point is what caught my attention. Let’s recall the basic story. The universe came into existence 13.7 billion years ago... Read more
To see what is in front of one’s nose needs constant struggle. – George Orwell When I was in law school, one of my professors told me about a rather interesting psychological study. The participants in the study were taken to a basketball game and told to try and keep track of the number of times the ball was passed in the game from one person to another. During the game, a man in a giant bee costume was brought... Read more
I will never forget the time I was in a small village in Ecuador and I saw a woman, bare breasted, openly and not discreetly (no blankets, no covers), nursing her toddler. The scene shocked me for many reasons. First, women are conservatively dressed in Ecuador and don’t show a lot of skin. Second, her child was not an infant, but a toddler. Third, the other Ecuadorans did not blink at the scene. I had to ask myself, why I... Read more
This New York Times article is as good a jumping off point as any for the woes we have in the Great Lakes Region. It is kind of interesting noting where in the country folks who leave comments lauding the joys of free trade are. In the case of this blog, most of the pro-free trade arguments come from Washington, DC. Given the choice between goods from Chicago and goods from China, what difference does it really make. Growing up... Read more
(H/T to Jimmy Akin for this one) — When L’Osservatore Romano published a debate between a pro-Harry Potter author and an anti-Harry Potter source, what do some of the “Catholic News” services do? Suggest that the paper published an article against Harry Potter without indicating the context of that article. Thus, we see the headlines of Harry Potter is No Hero: Vatican Newspaper and Harry Potter, wrong model of a hero, Vatican Newspaper Says encouraging the false perception that the Vatican is... Read more
Part I. Part II. Part III. Part IV. Part V. Up until now, our examination of Gnosticism has been theological and philosophical. There is another side of Gnosticism which needs to be addressed, that is, the connection between Gnosticism and the occult. Before we discuss contemporary Gnosticism, we need to acknowledge Gnosticism’s association with the occult. Simon was, after all, a magus, and many (but not all) Gnostic leaders would take on the role of wonderworker as a way to validate their... Read more
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