By Joseph Pearce, National Catholic Register – Grown-ups enjoy children’s literature; it is only those who refuse to grow up, like Peter Pan, who think that they are too grown up for it… It is said of William Shakespeare, in the words of his friend and fellow poet Ben Jonson, that he was “not of an age, but for all time.” What is true of arguably the greatest writer of all time is true of the greatest children’s literature. It is not of an age but for all ages.

By Elizabeth Yore, YoreChildren Newsletter – The lesson spoke volumes: Bergoglio elevated paganism, betrayed Catholicism, and mocked God and the Blessed Mother. From that moment on, he was the Pachamama Pope, reigning amid ridicule, suspicion and mockery, forever an indelible asterisk in the annals of Catholic patrimony… Now, to the horror of Catholics, we learn that the Robert Prevost, the successor to Francis displayed the same allegiance and reverence to pagan idols some 30 years before the Francis scandal.

By Harrison Berger, The American Conservative – One of the most bizarre contradictions of Trump’s war on Iran has been the wide gap between the scale of the war’s disruption to energy infrastructure and shipping and the surprisingly muted response from financial markets. Iran has made clear that its strategy is to impose severe economic pain on the United States, Israel, and the wider global system by keeping the Strait of Hormuz shut. If that threat were being fully priced in, argues the author Matt Stoller on Substack this week, oil prices would likely be far higher and equities far lower.

By George Caldwell, The Daily Signal – House Republican leadership and the party’s hardline conservative faction rejected the Senate’s homeland security funding deal, which omits funding for border security… “The Republicans are not going to be any part of any effort to reopen our borders or to stop immigration enforcement,” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., said Friday afternoon as he announced his intention to advance an eight-week stopgap funding bill for the DHS… “We are going to deport dangerous criminal illegal aliens because it is a basic function of the government. The Democrats fundamentally disagree,” he said.

By Elise Winland, Zeale – The U.S. Senate on March 27 unanimously passed a bill to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) amid an ongoing partial government shutdown but omitted funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)… The Senate approved the measure by a voice vote around 2:20 a.m. after a marathon session. The bill would fund agencies including the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) while leaving core immigration enforcement components without standard appropriations.

By Joseph Pearce, Crisis Magazine – What is real? What is reality? What is virtual reality? How real is virtual reality? How often do we think of these questions? Do we think of these questions? Do we think? Do we?… These questions spring to mind because I’ve been spending some time with the great contemporary Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft—not in person, more’s the pity, but in the pages of his new book, The Two Greatest Novels Ever Written: The Wisdom of The Lord of the Rings and The Brothers Karamazov.
Anything that Dr. Kreeft writes is worth reading.

By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza, The Catholic Thing – The feast day of the newest Doctor of the Church, John Henry Newman, is not his dies natalis (death) but 9th October, the day of his conversion in 1845. That date was definitive for the shape of the Catholic Church in England. So much good for the Catholic Church followed… On March 29, 1986,  Scott Hahn was received into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil. So much good for the Catholic Church followed.

By Andrew Day, The American Conservative – Lately, Trump has been expressing positive thoughts about a dreary topic: the war with Iran. Seemingly, he’s doing so in an effort to bring that war to a close. “I think we’re gonna end it”… Days earlier, Trump said that the White House had held “very good and productive conversations” with Iran over the weekend … Unfortunately, this isn’t the kind of predicament that Trump can wishcast his way out of. As analysts have emphasized, Tehran “gets a vote” as to when this war ends, and it doesn’t plan to stop until the U.S. and Israel learn that attacking Iran comes with high costs and shouldn’t be repeated in the future.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – John 10:31-42 – 31 The Jews took up stones again to stone him. 32 Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of these do you stone me?” 33 The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we stone you but for blasphemy; because you, being a man, make yourself God.” 34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, `I said, you are gods’? ……

By Francis X. Maier, The Catholic Thing – Science is an odd theme to choose on the brink of Holy Week.  Or maybe not so odd.  In a way, science is miraculous. It’s an expression of man’s dignity and genius.  It offers our species two deep satisfactions: the joy of discovering how the world works, and the means of using what we learn to improve our lives and the lives of others.  It also seems to answer the “why” of things.

By Austin Ruse, Crisis Magazine – Former university president and rock-ribbed evangelical Everett Piper writes in the Washington Times this week that Carrie Prejean is an antisemite because she believes, like all Catholics, that the Church is the New Israel and that the modern state of Israel is not Biblical Israel, that is to say, 1948 Israel is not the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy that will usher in the End Times.

By Geoffrey Dickens, Newsbusters – For this study, MRC analysts looked at the broadcast evening (ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News), morning news shows (ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, NBC Today) from February 11 through the morning of March 26… President Donald Trump’s voter ID proposal, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act proposal, is popular by a wide margin.

By Charles J. Russo, Catholic World Report – As Vermont officials finally recognized, like their counterparts in Oregon and Massachusetts—albeit not without judicial intervention—parents have the right to be free from outside interference or influences by state officials, absent abuse or other circumstances clearly lacking in any of these controversies. Yet, as reflected in all three of these controversies, public officials were unwilling to respect religious freedom because they apparently do not understand, or do not care, that mutual tolerance and acceptance are supposed to be a two-way street ….

By Angeline Tan, Live Action News – A 25-year-old Spanish woman, Noelia Castillo Ramos, who was left paralyzed after a failed suicide attempt following a brutal sexual assault, died by euthanasia on March 26… Her parents had attempted to save her life from state-sanctioned death after a previous suicide attempt left her paralyzed from the waist down. They were unsuccessful, despite multiple court appeals… She was gang-raped while institutionalized with mental health issues, which is what led to her first suicide attempt… the hospital pushed for the euthanasia to continue, as her organs had already been committed for harvesting.

Source: Catholic Culture, Lent – Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent: Pardon the offenses of your peoples, we pray, O Lord, and in your goodness set us free from the bonds of the sins we have committed in our weakness. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.