Modest and Bold, On the Gospel and Political Upheavals

9/21/2010 – Fr. Patrick Reardon –
Our country appears to be, at this moment, on the verge of a very big political upheaval. One has the sense of hearing a distant trumpet. We will know more, surely, after the fall elections.

Even now, nonetheless, one would be deaf not to detect a growing dissatisfaction—louder each day—with the “progressive movement” that controls much of our culture, including education, social services, entertainment, politics, publishing, and religion. Especially controversial is the nation’s recent reorganization of health care, widely regarded as a significant step in the direction of socialism. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

The Curious Logic of Our Governing Elites

9/20/2010 – Randall Hoven –
George Orwell said, “There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.” What follows is my beginning of a list of ideas that some very intelligent people seem to believe.

The air should be taxed. More precisely, what every animal on earth exhales and what every plant on earth inhales can and should be taxed.

President Bush was bad for the economy because he spent too much. President Obama is helping the economy by spending a lot.

A jury is better informed if evidence is withheld from it. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Evolution: Facts, Assertions, Theories and the Catholic Faith

Darwinism_fraud_01 9/12/2010 – F. K. Bartels –

Traditional textbook discussions of ancestral descent are ‘a festering mass of unsupported assertions’.

A recent study conducted by Ph.D student Sarda Sahney, et al., at the University of Bristol, published in Biology Letters, used fossil evidence as a basis for analyzing evolutionary patterns over 400 million years of history. Sarda Sahney and colleagues posit that the availability of “living space” rather than competition for survival — as Darwin proposed — is the governing factor behind the evolution of species. Their theory is based on the concept that the process of evolution in which an organism is involved is highly influenced by its “ecological niche,” which includes such factors as food resources and habitat conditions. According to the study, large evolutionary changes occur in animals as a result of their migration into living spaces which are unoccupied by other animals.

Former president of Gonzaga University and noted scholar Fr. Robert Spitzer confirmed that “Darwin assumed that competition was what was driving the development of human species and particularly the dominance of one species over another.” Fr. Spitzer pointed out that “there is no way of reaching back in time and finding empirical evidence of that fact.” [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Creating a God-Honoring Culture – Centurion Program

Chuck Colson
Chuck Colson
9/10/2010 – Chuck Colson –

I have a burning passion—it’s the first item on my prayer list every day— and that’s to see a movement of Christians raised up from the churches to defend truth in the marketplace of ideas and to live out the gospel. Nothing less than this kind of an awakening can possibly save our quickly deteriorating culture.

That’s why I’m now spending all of my time working at BreakPoint and the Colson Center. One of my major projects is developing Christian leaders who can understand and defend a biblical view of all of life.

We call this the Centurions program. For the past six years we have brought 100 of the best and brightest into this year-long teaching effort, to study under some of the best minds in the Christian world. It’s demanding; we read books together, view movies and critique them; do a lot of teaching on line; and have three residencies during the year in Lansdowne, Virginia near our offices. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Russian Metropolitan Blasts Anglican Communion’s Sexual Innovations

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk
Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk

9/13/2010 – David W. Virtue –
Our Church must sever its relations with those churches and communities that trample on the principles of Christian ethics and traditional morals. Here we uphold a firm stand based on Holy Scripture.

In a groundbreaking address at Lambeth Palace before the Nicean Club that included the Archbishop of Canterbury, Russian Metropolitan Hilarion blasted those parts of the Anglican Communion experimenting with sexual innovations saying they threatened continuing dialogue with the Orthodox Church.

In surprise remarks that observers say embarrassed Dr. Williams, Hilarion ripped Western Anglican liberals who have deviated from heterosexual marriage calling it “an abyss that divides traditional Christians from Christians of liberal trend.” [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Sharia Degradation of Women

9/13/2010 – Eileen F. Toplansky –
The unremitting degradation of women in most of the Mideast, Africa, and other parts of Asia where Islamic law plays a huge role is horrifying and appalling. Islamic law endorses slavery, demands executions for apostasy, and condones the repression of women.

The debasement of women plays a critical role among Palestinian women, where little girls live under a death threat of honor killing. The male sexual abuse of female children is quite pervasive [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Poor in America Grow Under Obama

Povery Rates Increase from 13.2% to 15%
Povery Rates Increase from 13.2% to 15%

9/12/2010 – Catholic Online –

Since President Barack Obama has taken office, the numbers of America’s poor has steadily climbed. Working-age poor people are reaching the levels of the 1960s, before the national war on poverty.

Census figures for 2009 are to be released this week, and demographers expect troubling statistics.

The findings come at a most unfortunate time – seven weeks before Congressional elections, with many Democrats and Obama supporters expected to be voted out. The expected increase, from 13.2 percent to about 15 percent people living below the poverty line, would be another blow to Democrats struggling to persuade voters to keep them in power.

If these estimates hold true, some 45 million people in this country — more than one in seven, were poor last year. It would be the highest single-year increase since the government began calculating poverty figures in 1959. The previous high was in 1980 when the rate jumped 1.3 percentage points to 13 percent during the energy crisis. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

St. John Chrysostom vs. Communism

St. John Chrysostomby Editors –
This quote was supposedly written by St. John Chrysostom. Those warnings regarding core principles that form the foundation of socialist/communist ideologies should have been heeded by the Church and taught to the people.

St. John Chrysostom:
“Should we look to kings and princes to put right the inequalities between rich and poor? Should we require soldiers to come and seize the rich person’s gold and distribute it among his destitute neighbors? Should we beg the emperor to impose a tax on the rich so great that it reduces them to the level of the poor and then to share the proceeds of that tax among everyone? Equality imposed by force would achieve nothing, and do much harm. Those who combined both cruel hearts and sharp minds would soon find ways of making themselves rich again. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

The War on Academic Achievement

9/8/2010 – Robert Weissberg –
Judged by all the billions of dollars now flowing into “education reform,” it appears that Washington, and especially the Obama administration, is obsessed with improving academic achievement (see, for example, here). The billions are certainly real enough, but the intent is just the opposite. Rhetoric aside, the Obama administration, like Bush II’s before it, is profoundly opposed to brainpower. Our “commitment” to academic excellence is a cruel joke — we love stupidity and hate smart kids. Tellingly, not even “conservatives” who bemoan America’s educational decline will admit this awkward reality — they, too, are passengers on this reform gravy train heading to the bottom. [Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail