Moral issues

Chick-fil-A’s Defense of True Marriage Stirs Controversy

July 22, 2012July 25, 2012 by Orthodox Editors

Chick-fil-A Defense of True Marriage by Catholic Online –
Fast food chain Chick-fil-A takes pride in espousing Christian values, closing all of its 1,600 restaurants every Sunday. The chain also handed out fliers in protest of the controversial Bible epic “The Last Temptation of Christ” in 1988. Now, Chick-fil-A’s President Dan Cathy’s recent comments on defending true marriage have stirred controversy – on online communities and elsewhere. …

“Guilty as charged,” Cathy said when asked by the Baptist Press about his company’s support of the traditional — as opposed to gay marriage.

“We are very much supportive of the family – the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that,” Cathy said.

Response to Cathy’s comments has been vituperative online. The comments have made Chick-fil-A the top Google trend as the company’s Facebook and Twitter pages were burning up with arguments. [Read more…]

Russian Wonders Why West Is Enamored With Socialism

July 8, 2012July 9, 2012 by Orthodox Editors

Communist Holocaust Murder Evil Tyranny by Edward Pentin –
Like a fair number of citizens from former Soviet-ruled countries, Russian pro-life campaigner Alexey Komov is surprised and disheartened to see the West flirting once again with socialism as a consequence of the global financial situation.

Whether it be in the form of support for the Obama administration, or the backing of other socialist-leaning policies and political parties, he sees the trend as disturbing and irrational.

In Rome to address a conference to launch the Rome office of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute (Institute for Human Dignity) June 29, Komov stressed that socialism has “never worked in world history” and that he found it “really amazing” to see such support when, in the 20th century, the ideology had caused such great pain and suffering “all in the name of social reform, progress and improvement.” [Read more…]

Archbishop Chaput: Christians Must Render Themselves Unto God

July 6, 2012July 9, 2012 by Orthodox Editors

by Archbishop Charles Chaput –
Paul Claudel, the French poet and diplomat of the last century, once described the Christian as “a man who knows what he is doing and where he is going in a world [that] no longer [knows] the difference between good and evil, yes and no. He is like a god standing out in a crowd of invalids . . . He alone has liberty in a world of slaves.”

Like most of the great writers of his time, Claudel was a mix of gold and clay, flaws and genius. He had a deep and brilliant Catholic faith, and when he wrote that a man “who no longer believes in God, no longer believes in anything,” he was simply reporting what he saw all around him. He spoke from a lifetime that witnessed two world wars and the rise of atheist ideologies that murdered tens of millions of innocent people using the vocabulary of science. He knew exactly where forgetting God can lead. [Read more…]

Earning Happiness — The Moral Promise of Free Enterprise

July 1, 2012July 3, 2012 by Orthodox Editors

Prager University The words “happiness” and “free enterprise” don’t usually appear in the same sentence. Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute, explains that the two are intimately and profoundly connected. The free enterprise system not only creates real wealth, it also provides individuals with the best chance to achieve personal satisfaction.

Brooks’ lecture, titled “Earning Happiness: The Moral Promise of Free Enterprise,” makes a strong case that the free market economic system is most conducive to human welfare. Brooks explains

“Free enterprise matters not just because of its unparalleled material benefits but because of its unparalleled moral benefits.”

[Read more…]

The Republic is Finished, the America We Knew is Gone

June 28, 2012June 29, 2012 by Orthodox Editors

Obamacare Destroys Liberty America by Fr. Johannes Jacobse –
With this morning’s decision that Obamacare will stand as the law of the land means that America — home of the brave, land of the free — is no more. This great country, the one to whom all great refugee movements of the world for over two centuries saw as the light to escape poverty, political bondage, and hopelessness now turns its back on that legacy of freedom for what will, in a very short time, amount a bowl of pottage.

The turn to tyranny won’t happen overnight and it won’t be recognized as tyranny — not at first anyway. But as freedom gets chipped away the straight jacked gets tighter and then hardens to envelop the mind like a steel casket. By the middle of the next generation those who gave away their freedom in the name of freedom will be cursed by their own children. The children will weep by the waters of Babylon, unearthing old movies and books of an America they never knew. “Why did you not shout out against the decline?” they will cry. [Read more…]

John Roberts, America’s Latest Benedict Arnold, Betrays the American People

June 28, 2012June 28, 2012 by Orthodox Editors

John Roberts Benedict Arnold Betrayer by Mike Razar –
You win some; you lose some. It is doubly painful to lose because of a betrayal by someone you admired and trusted. Caesar’s dying words were “Et tu Brute”. Judas Roberts has broken faith with everyone who cares about Constitutional freedom.

Given the opportunity to at least slow two centuries of the assumption of dictatorial power by the federal government, Roberts has chosen to side with the Jacobins. His name henceforth is inexorably linked with Benedict Arnold, the one-time hero of Saratoga who mysteriously changed sides when his loyalty was most needed by General Washington. Nathan Hale must be sobbing in his grave today.[Read more…]

The End of America? The HHS Mandate’s Threat to Freedom

June 26, 2012June 27, 2012 by Orthodox Editors

HHS Mandate’s Threat to Freedom The Obama’s Administration’s mandate requiring the Catholic Church to conform to government dictates on contraception and abortifacent drugs is more than a war on the Catholic Church argue Jennifer Roback Morse and Eric Metaxas. It’s a war on freedom.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has mandated that social service providers, including those run by Christian institutions and the Catholic Church, pay for abortion inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilizations through their health insurance plans, even if this violates their religious beliefs.

Eric Metaxas and Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse articulate the grave dangers of the Health & Human Services (HHS) Mandate with regard to religious freedom in America. [Read more…]

Why Liberals Are Selfish

June 21, 2012June 23, 2012 by Orthodox Editors

Liberals Are Selfish by Kyle Becker –
It is a constant refrain on the left that conservatives are “selfish.” Those who want to work and keep the fruits of their own labor are castigated as self-centered and greedy, while progressives are held out to be all-compassionate and kind for supporting government-run programs for every malady under the sun. Enough of that rubbish.

The term “selfish” in various contexts implies that someone wrongfully holds onto or gains something at the expense of another. While conservatives and most political moderates uses the term “selfish” to deride those who take things that do not belong to them — in other words, what that person did not produce or receive voluntarily from another — the modern left uses the term “selfish” to upbraid those who want to hold onto something of their own that is demanded by another.

The left therefore seems to assume that the life, labor, and property of any individual are the possession of “society.” [Read more…]

On Atheistic Fanaticism

June 21, 2012June 23, 2012 by Orthodox Editors

by Sergey Khudiev –
There are different ways to talk about religion and atheism. A deep, thorough discussion is possible, and I have had occasion to encounter serious, thoughtful atheists who are sincerely aspiring towards an honest and independent judgment. I am genuinely indebted to certain atheistic writers for helping me to acquire a most valuable habit: that of thought. However, a serious discussion about serious questions is often replaced by highfalutin propaganda designed for an audience that is ill-informed and, more regrettably, intellectually lazy. Both believers and atheists can become prone to such propaganda; it is harmful, first of all, in that it encourages and forms a habit of intellectual laziness and dishonesty.

In this article I would like to consider one of the clichés of atheist propaganda. A commonplace of this propaganda is the referral to crimes committed under the banner of religion: have a look, they say, at the madness to which faith in God leads. [Read more…]

The Left: Where Greed Meets Envy

June 20, 2012June 22, 2012 by Orthodox Editors

Christian Socialists communists democrats by David P. McGinley –
In ascertaining the general hierarchy of sins, a good point of reference is the Ten Commandments. While the Decalogue is not all-inclusive, God dictated these specific directives to Moses as the basis upon which His people should live. Among the ten is the command not to covet: “You shall not covet … anything that belongs to your neighbor” (Ex. 20:17).

Covetousness (or envy), meaning the possession of a strong desire for what another has, does not get the attention that its close relation “greed” gets. Greed, of course, is greatly derided in scripture, and for good reason, but God did not see fit to include it in the commandments He set out on Mt. Sinai. Why?

For one thing, greed is not always destructive, while envy is. [Read more…]