Wednesday may 7, 2008 Testimony: conversion of a muslim, to christianity.... (video 20 min) 11:26:24 AM

Friday april 25, 2008 Why Muslims Convert to Christianity 11:19:35 AM

Sunday april 13, 2008 In a satirical manner, Cardinal Arinze criticized a standard pro-abortion political argument. “To the person who says, ‘Personally, I am against abortion, but then if people really want to do it I leave them free’ you can say ‘You are a member of the senate or the congress. “‘Personally I am not in favor of shooting the whole lot of you, but if somebody else wants to shoot all of you in the senate or all of you in the congress, it’s just pro-choice for that. “’But personally I’m not in favor.’ “That is what they are saying,” the cardinal argued. “They are saying that personally, he is not in favor of killing these millions of children in the womb, but if others want to do it, he is pro-choice.”... The cardinal noted that he is often asked if a politician who votes for abortion should receive Holy Communion. He said his reply was, “Do you really need a cardinal from the Vatican to answer that?” “Get the children for first communion and say to them, somebody votes for the killing of unborn babies, and says, I voted for that, I will vote for that every time and these babies are killed, not one or two, but in millions, and that person says I am a practicing Catholic, should that person receive communion next Sunday? “The children for first communion will answer that at the drop of a hat. You don’t need a cardinal to answer that.” 7:12:51 AM

Saturday april 5, 2008 In 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision, turned seeds into widgets... Skin Disease May Be Linked to GM Food...biochemist Vitaly Citovsky discovered that the fibers contain a substance called “Agrobacterium,” which, according to New Scientist, is “used commercially to produce genetically-modified plants.” Could GM plants be “causing a new human disease?...Could it be that companies such as Monsanto have enough clout to effectively squash these stories? If they have enough clout to ruin countries by deceiving impoverished farmers into purchasing patented GMO seeds, and then take it a step further and force these poor people to purchase seeds year after year instead of harvesting their own, then they have enough clout to ... 10:08:02 AM

Wednesday march 5, 2008 Buenos Aires, Mar 4, 2008 / 04:07 pm (CNA).- The cause of beatification of Cardinal Eduardo Pironio, who died in 1998, could move ahead if the cure of 15 month-old boy who suffered from paint poisoning is declared miraculous. The vice postulator of the cause, Beatriz Buzzetti Thomson, is responsible for investigating the complete cure of the child, whose identity has not been revealed and is two and a half years old. According to local reporters, after the accident, the parents of the child prayed for the intercession of Cardinal Pironio.  The child improved and was released from the hospital despite doctors’ assurances that if he survived, he would suffer long-term complications. The prayer, which the parents found on the back of a holy card and has been approved by the Bishops’ Conference of Argentina, reads as follows: God, our Father, you called your servant Eduardo Francisco Pironio to serve your Church as a priest and a bishop, comforted by the maternal care of the Virgin Mary, you made him a joyful proclaimer of hope and the cross.  Grant us that, following his example, we may proclaim and give witness to our faith with a merciful and welcoming heart and, through his intercession, give us the grace that we confidently ask of you. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.     His Life   Eduardo Francisco Pironio was born in the town of Nueve de Julio, Argentina, on December 3, 1920.  He was the 22nd child of a family of Italian immigrants... 1:43:26 PM

Friday february 29, 2008 Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast says he will first speak with politicians who support abortion and encourage them to convert to the pro-life perspective. But, for those elected officials who continue to advocate legal abortions, he would tell them they shouldn't be taking part in the Christian sacrament. “Given your stubbornness on this particular issue, you should not publicly receive the Eucharist until you’ve changed your mind," he told the Western Catholic Reporter about what he'd say. Archbishop Prendergast's warning would be instructional rather than condemning. “The bishop is not a policeman,” he said. “He is a father in Christ, a Shepherd of his flock.” He also encouraged Catholic parishioners to do their own part to urge Catholic politicians to follow the teachings of the Church in their public policy. “We all have to live our lives as faithful Christians in politics, in public life, in the schools and in every area of life,” he said. 9:24:33 AM Religious vocation as a life choice has been off the radar screen for too long. What this crop of discerners is finding is that the option of life as a brother, sister, or priest may be the one that satisfies their heart's desire above all else 9:19:23 AM

Thursday february 28, 2008 video (6:48) Becoming a nun seems an archaic thing to do in this modern and increasingly secular society, and yet the order of nuns at St Anthony's in Wanganui, New Zeland, are in no short supply. 1:10:49 PM

Wednesday february 27, 2008 Fr. Jim Whalen, The National Director of Priests for Life, Canada suffered a massive heart attack Sunday morning while conducting a Pro-Life Mission at Most Holy Rosary Parish in Thorold, Ontario (Near Niagara Falls)... In the summer of 1996, Fr. Jim was asked by a group of people in the Diocese of Pembroke to take on the role of National Director for a newly created organization called Priests for Life Canada. Without hesitation, Fr. Jim accepted. When asked why he was so open to taking on this challenge, Fr. Jim answered "As a priest, we cannot 'not be involved'. We must use all the forces available to us to attack the problems of contraception, abortion, and euthanasia". Prior to becoming a priest, Father Jim taught at all levels in the Ottawa Separate School system. In addition to being bilingual, he was serving as the spiritual director of The Senatus, the Governing Body of the Legion of Mary, Northern Ontario. He also spent thirty years as Chaplain for Native Peoples of Ottawa and was one of the founders of Odawa Native Friendship Center. Further involvement included his work assisting the Ottawa area Catholic Home Schooler's Association as Spiritual Advisor and he taught Religious Science for two years at Ottawa University. 6:04:53 AM We are just five months away from the 40th anniversary of the papal encyclical on birth control, entitled Humanae Vitae, and I am writing to ask your assistance in a project that I hope will impact thousands of men responsible for this marvelous teaching—our priests and seminarians. The project is simple: to send to as many priests and seminarians as possible a new email newsletter that is dedicated to educating them on the teaching of this encyclical. 5:55:10 AM

Wednesday february 20, 2008 YouTube If you but stumble into those confessional boxes, He will welcome you back... I have never received the punishment that I deserved... and if we look into our own souls, I think we will also come to that conclusion... Does God know what it is to suffer ?... The difference between Need Love and Gift Love.... I must be about my Fathers business.... There is your Mother... Show me your hands... show me your feet... show me your heart... 4:20:14 PM

Friday february 8, 2008 Protest against Pope at Sapienza university was based on false encyclopedia entry 2:59:09 PM

Thursday february 7, 2008 ....accepting public money to perform a government-desired service does not make a private agency part of the government. Nor does it transform the government into a catechism class. But insofar as any “debt” exists in a government and religious agency relationship, it’s the government that owes the service provider, not the other way around. Obviously, if the government wants to carry the social burden it currently asks religious-affiliated groups to carry, that’s the government’s business—and so are the costs and problems that go along with it. But if religious groups do help bear the burden, often at a financial loss to themselves, then they can reasonably insist on the right to protect their own mission. The privilege of helping the government is pretty thin soup if the cost involves compromising one’s religious identity. The second and more dangerous problem with bills like HB 1080 is that they aggressively advance a secularist interpretation of the “separation of Church and state.” Whether they do it consciously or not, groups like the Anti-Defamation League seem to argue from the presumption that any public money passing through religious agency hands is somehow rendered “baptized” and therefore unable to serve the common good. Aside from being enormously offensive to religious believers, this view is also alien to American history, which is filled with examples of government and private religious cooperation to achieve common public goals. It’s certainly reasonable for government to require that religious service agencies refrain from using public funds to proselytize. But Catholic Charities doesn’t do that anyway; that’s not its purpose. In fact, the overwhelming majority of the six hundred jobs at Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Denver are already open to anyone of goodwill and competence, regardless of religious background. The relatively few positions that do require a faithful, practicing Catholic are exactly the ones that help guarantee Charities’ “Catholic” identity and its grounding in the social ministry of the Church. It’s unreasonable—in fact, it shows a peculiar hostility toward religion—to claim that religious organizations will compromise the public good if they remain true to their religious identity while serving the poor with public funds. That’s just a new form of prejudice, using the “separation of Church and state” as an alibi. Bills like HB 1080 are now occurring all over the country. The lesson here for American Catholics is this: For more than forty years, we’ve worked to integrate, accommodate, and assimilate to American society in the belief that a truly diverse public square would have room for authentically Catholic life and faith. We need to revisit that assumption. It turns out that nobody gets anything for free. If we want to influence, or even have room to breathe in the American environment of coming generations, we’ll need to work for it and fight for it—always in a spirit of justice and charity, but also vigorously and without apology. Anyone who still has an easy confidence about the Catholic “place” in American life had better wake up. 4:28:24 PM ...these are both very deeply devout Catholic young people and yet their temperaments and their cultures are radically different 3:52:04 PM Cigarette Silence - When will the Church comment on the evils of Big Tobacco? ...Clearly there would be an impact if the Church decided to take a stand on the insidious practices of an industry whose business plan is to make it easier to turn their consumers into addicts. ...The soon-to-be-launched “Marlboro Intense” will allow smokers to cope with indoor smoking bans by taking quick, deep puffs of a shorter but more potent cigarette during a quick outdoor break. It’s an insidiously brilliant idea—and one that has global human implications to which the Catholic Church must pay attention. Philip Morris USA and Philip Morris International will become two separate companies, parent company, Altria, announced this week. By doing this, Philip Morris International will be outside of the reach of most all regulatory efforts and threats of legal liability. Even after this split from the US market, PMI will be the third most profitable consumer goods concern in the world—and will have worldwide autonomy to create products that kill. ... As a public health professional, I do not consider 485,000 premature deaths annually in the United States to be “trivial.” And I am outraged to see the ongoing marketing of cigarettes here in our country. But this week’s move by Philip Morris to go on a worldwide campaign to sell these new “sexy” types of cigarettes—to newly addict hundreds of millions more people in Africa, China, Korea, Russia and beyond—is nothing short of appalling. 10:57:06 AM

Monday february 4, 2008 Twins Save Mom's Life, Kick Loose Deadly Tumor From Mom's Cervix While Still in Womb 9:03:26 AM

Sunday february 3, 2008 Fulton Sheen, Still a Powerful Witness: An Interview with Fr. Andrew Apostoli 8:27:34 AM That sign of hope at massive life rally.... l'arc en ciel à la fin de la manifestation pro-vie devant la cour suprême des États-Unis le 22 janvier 2008. Video YouTube 8:05:11 AM

Friday february 1, 2008 Acts of kindness - A senior's moment 11:55:21 AM

Thursday january 31, 2008 " When human beings in the weakest and most defenseless state of their existence are selected, abandoned, killed or used as pure 'biological material,' how can one deny that they are being treated not as 'someone' but as 'something' " 11:08:54 AM

Thursday january 17, 2008 US - 35th March for Life Washington, DC next Tuesday, January 22nd 2008.  According to Wikipedia, this is the most attended annual march in Washington D.C. (100k+) so there is plenty happening. Official schedule of events from the USCCB (beginning with Jan. 21 Vigil Mass) MarchForLife.org - the organizers of the event (not all that useful, honestly StudentsForLife.org - they host a pro-life conference in DC on the 20th. Cardinal O'Connor Conference for Life - Takes place at Georgetown on the 21st. 2008 Rally for Life & Youth Mass - Jan 22nd, by the Archdiocese of Washing & Abp. Wuerl The American Life League is hosting Rock for Life, a training & activism weekend for youth. Blogs For Life Conference - A must for St. Blog's community members, hosted by the FRC Priests for Life has a list of events listed here and here (focusing on Fr. Frank Pavone). LifeSiteNews offers its schedule of 2008 Conferences and Activities here. Last year, President Bush called the Marchers for Life and gave them encouragement. CNS: "Culture of life means changing hearts, president tells March for Life" Dawn Eden informs us that the Catholic Information Center is doing several things to help Marchers, including discounts, free wireless internet and a tea party! She'll also be at Blogs for Life. This year, CNS reports, "Founder says walk to Capitol Hill still the top March for Life event" LifeSiteNews announces that the entire student population of Christendom college is coming. We should not forget to mention the West Coast March for Life, taking place on Saturday the 19th. The fourth French Pro-Life march in Paris will take place on the 20th, last year they assembled 10k people. 6:26:27 AM

Sunday january 13, 2008 George Weigel’s newest book focuses on theological roots of Islamic terrorism, gives possible solutions 7:52:52 PM

Tuesday january 8, 2008 How the birth control pill acts as an abortifacient youtube video 5:09:59 AM

Sunday january 6, 2008 Bishop: Extremism Creating 'No-Go' Areas for Non-Muslims in Britain 9:16:42 AM

Tuesday january 1, 2008 If you take the life and suction out the pieces of an unborn child for no reason than its inconvenience to the mother, I don't think you've lived up to your Hippocratic Oath of doing no harm 11:15:35 AM

Tuesday december 18, 2007 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - Doctrinal note on some aspects of evangelization 2:53:05 PM Pope's talks with Muslims scares al Qaeda: Vatican 2:31:58 PM

Monday november 26, 2007 Catholic confession making a comeback 11:33:33 AM

Tuesday november 13, 2007 When the Church inquires into a person's life with the view of proclaiming him/her a saint, evidence of heroic virtue is required. Benedict XIV thus describes this kind of virtue: "In order to be heroic, a Christian virtue must enable its owner to perform virtuous actions with uncommon promptitude, ease, and pleasure, from supernatural motives and without human reasoning, with self-abnegation and full control over ones natural inclinations." A heroic virtue, then, is a habit of good conduct that has become a second nature, a new motive power stronger than all corresponding inborn inclinations, capable of rendering easy a series of acts each of which, for the ordinary person, would be beset with very great, if not insurmountable, difficulties. Such a degree of virtue belongs only to souls already purified from all attachment to things worldly, and solidly anchored in the love of God. "To keep ones minds intent always on God”: to put it mildly, the Founder’s aspiration is more than difficult as anyone who tries to put it into practice for even a short time becomes only too well aware. Despite our best resolve, a jumble of other thoughts and concerns jostle aside all thoughts about God and we return to our usual unreflecting way of life, reacting to events in an instinctive fashion and judging according to human standards and criteria. However, at some time or other, all of us have met people who seemed to be able to accomplish this extraordinary ‘feat’ of being at the same time both intent on God and particularly present to others. There was no contradiction or discontinuity in their lives, becoming ‘pious’ or ‘religious’ when such was expected of them and then reverting to being ‘sensible’ in all other things. Everything and everyone were seen ‘sub specie aeternitatis’ (in the light of eternity). The Founder was such a person and whilst we have divided, for convenience sake, his many letters into the ‘ascetical’ and ‘general’ category, the latter still carry the mark of his deep spirituality. In computer language, it could be said that the ‘God programme’ was always running in the background of his personality and make-up, constantly monitoring and influencing his thinking and speech and coming easily and effortlessly to the foreground as the occasion demanded. 7:00:40 PM Blessed Liberty: The Posthumous Miracle of Antonio Rosmini 11:17:15 AM

Thursday november 8, 2007 Development and Peace is accepting donations from the Canadian public to support its partners in Mexico. 7:16:50 AM

Wednesday november 7, 2007 why am I so unhappy? 11:25:54 AM “In a society increasingly more secularized and consumerist, it’s not only difficult to listen to the call to the priesthood, it is also difficult to live the Christian faith consistently. God “undoubtedly calls many to the path of the priesthood.” What is needed is “silence, prayer [and] reflection to listen to his call” 11:22:24 AM In choosing to disobey, they break faith with the Church 11:13:25 AM

Thursday october 25, 2007 use virtual worlds to "encourage [kids] to exercise those same values and skills we wish to see them exercise in the real world" 4:09:44 PM

Tuesday october 23, 2007 Everyone must intervene against violence 5:57:48 AM

Monday october 22, 2007 A film that embraces the sanctity of human life. Bella, winner of the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival’s “People’s Choice Award,” opens October 26 in 31 markets nationwide. 2:27:06 PM

Thursday october 11, 2007 Blessed Mother Teresa's niece shares stories of famed nun's youth 11:43:52 AM

Wednesday october 10, 2007 the teaching of Islam 11:17:55 AM