News

By Fr. Ed Broom, OMV, Catholic Exchange – This article will focus on the Church Triumphant—the saints in heaven who have victoriously triumphed over their three primary enemies—the devil and his lies, the world and its seductions, and the flesh and its imperious disordered cravings! Following are ten precise insights into the most captivating, heroic, appealing, joyful, tremendous people that walked on planet earth and now are permanent residents in heaven—God’s friends, but also your friends and mine—the saints!… The saints can help us in many ways… First, is their power of intercession.

By Stephen Wynne, Church Militant – Bishop Athanasius Schneider has joined a growing chorus of Catholic voices troubled over the upcoming Amazon Synod in Rome… In an essay for Austrian website kath.net on Wednesday, the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan slammed proponents of a married Amazonian clergy as tricksters attempting to deny the peoples of the South American interior “the ability to sacrifice priests to the Church from their midst.”

By Fr. Mike Schmitz, Ascension Presents – The four horsemen still rear their heads in the healthy relationships that Dr. Gottman observed, but these relationships have the following interactions five times as often.. Giving respect and honoring the other person.. Building up the other person and affirming them.. Meeting the other person where they are.. Opening up to receive their questions and comments in a positive manner

By Tom Collingwood Ph.D., Catholic Stand – In reading or hearing the media discuss a particular issue a common term heard is “everybody knows” or “its common knowledge that” followed by some dogmatic statement on the issue. It is hard to tell, at times, if what is being presented is true or propaganda to support a particular position.

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – Massimo Faggioli teaches in the theology department at Villanova… Villanova is—or claims to be—a Catholic university… Those who teach in theology departments at Catholic universities are obliged to obtain the mandatum from the diocesan bishop… “The mandatum is fundamentally an acknowledgment by church authority that a Catholic professor of a theological discipline is teaching within the full communion of the Catholic Church.”.. Villanova is in the Philadelphia archdiocese, which is led by Archbishop Charles Chaput… Faggioli suggested that Archbishop Chaput is schismatic… Now isn’t this an interesting situation?

By Lisa Bourne, LifeSiteNews – Villanova University historian Massimo Faggioli has labeled three U.S. bishops “devout schismatics” who attempt to undercut the authority of Pope Francis… The “schismatic instincts” of Archbishops Charles Chaput of Philadelphia and Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco along with Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, “have been on display since the beginning of Francis’ pontificate,” Faggioli said.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – I also thought today of doing a little post on the sins that cry to heaven for vengeance since I was talking to a parishioner today, who is suffering because his employer has not paid him for three weeks. The employer, a government agency says this is due to “administrative difficulties” in the bureaucracy where he works. He was angry (rightfully so) and getting desperate. I reminded him that withholding wages was a sin that cried to heaven and that God was angry with him.

By Stephanie Barclay, Public Discourse – The “Do No Harm” Act would gut the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by removing religious liberty protections that result in “harm” to others. That would be a mistake. Protection of any First Amendment rights inherently involves balancing competing harms on both sides of the ledger… This spring, members of Congress introduced a bill called the “Do No Harm Act,” which would remove statutory religious liberty protections for actions that result in “harm to others.”

By James C. Capretta, The Catholic Thing – The right to medical care is not found in the Constitution, but that’s true of other rights. Sanders veers off course, however, when he says that his preferred solution – “Medicare for All” – is the only way to ensure that all citizens and residents have ready access to needed care… That’s certainly not the position of the Catholic Church. The Church has no expertise in how the particulars of a health system should operate. And there are many ways the state can carry out this responsibility….

By Kaylee Greenlee, LifeNews – Netflix’s latest quarterly report shows the streaming service giant experienced a chill in growth with its first quarterly loss of paid domestic subscribers in eight years. The dip in subscriptions came in the same quarter as Netflix’s decision to take a stance against Georgia’s pro-life “heartbeat bill.”… Netflix “on Wednesday reported a loss of 126,000 domestic paid subscribers compared with analysts’ expectations for a 352,000 gain,” CNBC reported. “Netflix also missed its own forecast for global subscriber growth by 2.3 million.”

By Peter Kwasniewski, LifeSiteNews – The first pope in many hundreds of years to have been canonized (due to the lofty and stringent norms for canonizations in place before Vatican II), Pius X was single-mindedly dedicated to the reform of the Church, above all in her liturgical and devotional life. His writings indicate that he always considered the internal strengthening of the Church, the deepening of her life of prayer and sacrifice, her best and, in truth, her only safeguard against depredations from without and dissensions from within.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – The most important word in this sentence is the word “my.” Jesus says, my yoke is easy; my burden is light… What is a yoke? It’s a wooden truss that makes it easier to carry a heavy load by distributing the weight across a wider part of the body or by allowing the weight to be shared by two or more people or animals. In the picture above, the woman is able to carry the heavy water more easily with the weight distributed across her shoulders rather than in her hands.

By Gregg Re, Chad Pergram, Fox News – After several chaotic and historic days on Capitol Hill, the chaplain of the House of Representatives opened the legislative day Thursday with a prayer to cast out “all spirits of darkness from this chamber.”.. “This has been a difficult and contentious week in which darker spirits seem to have been at play in the people’s House,” the Reverend Pat Conroy began… Then, in a dramatic moment, Conroy raised both hands and said, “In Your most holy name, I cast out all spirits of darkness from this chamber. Spirits not from You. I cast out the spirit of discouragement which deadens the hope of those who are of goodwill.

By Fr. Mike Schmitz, Ascension Presents – Fr. Mike discusses four signs that your relationship is falling apart, especially when it comes to stonewalling. Stonewalling, as used in the context of this video, is when we refuse to communicate or cooperate with someone.Psychologist Dr. John Gottman calls it one of the “four horsemen of the apocalypse”, or one of four types of expression that indicate that your relationship is falling apart. The other three are defensiveness, criticism, and contempt.

By Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register – In a joint foreword to the German translation of the synod’s working document (instrumentum laboris), the chief executives of Adveniat and Misereor, respectively the German bishops’ relief agency for Latin America and the bishops’ overseas aid and development agency, said the upcoming meeting “will show that change is possible in politics, the economy, technology and, last but not least, in the Church.”

By The Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal – Progressives are hurtling to the left so fast that even liberals in good standing are casualties of the tornado. Witness the coup this week at Planned Parenthood, which is a tacit reminder that the group is less a health-care outfit than a political lobby… The Planned Parenthood board defenestrated president Leana Wen, a physician who had been on the job for less than a year. What happened? By Dr. Wen’s account she was pushed out because she wasn’t radical enough on abortion.

Catholic News Agency – As a new regulation takes effect, barring Title X recipients from making abortion referrals, Planned Parenthood has reportedly decided to forego the federal funds in order to continue directing women to abortion… “We are not going to comply with a regulation that would require health care providers to not give full information to their patients,” Jacqueline Ayers, the group’s top lobbyist, said Tuesday as reported by ABC News… The Trump administration announced July 15 that parts of the Protect Life Rule, which prohibits recipients of Title X family planning funds from referring or performing abortions, will go into effect immediately.

By Jim Fair, Zenit – “The astounding growth proves a simple matter,” according to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “It proves that religious freedom matters to literally billions of people all around the world. Look around you. Religious freedom isn’t just a Christian concern, a Jewish concern, a Muslim concern, a Buddhist concern, a Hindu concern, or a humanist concern. It’s all of our concern; it is everyone’s concern.”

By Chad Groening, OneNewsNow – “It is very sad,” Gary Bauer says of Omar, the freshman Minnesota congresswoman whose remarks about American Jews, Israel, and the 9/11 attacks have created headaches for Democratic leaders in recent months… Omar is drawing new attention this week after introducing a resolution supporting the BDS — Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions — movement against Israel and comparing BDS to other boycotted countries such as Nazi Germany, South Africa, and the Soviet Union.

By Sam Beurskens, OnePeterFive – The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a profound work of tremendous meaning, mystery, and beauty. For this reason, I think Catholics need to review just what the Mass is, considering that over the last 60 years many people were rendered ignorant, and those who did know have forgotten, a result of the strong Protestant emphasis (almost denying the real presence and the sacrifice) in the new Mass or Novus Ordo.

By Derek Rotty, Crisis Magazine – The political scene is drawing toward the center of our national consciousness (if it ever left) as Democratic presidential debates take place and the 2020 election nears. As this process happens, faithful Catholics need sound ways to think about candidates, policies, and the landscape in general… Josef Pieper, a great twentieth-century philosopher, provides a broad but excellent definition of politics: it is “the summation of all man’s active cares about securing his existence.” This encompasses all that we see and experience in modern politics.

By Stephen Wynne, Church Militant – West Virginia Catholics have won a crucial victory in the struggle to purge their diocese of corruption… On Wednesday, Abp. William Lori, apostolic administrator of Wheeling-Charleston, announced a raft of reforms aimed at strengthening oversight of diocesan finances. The move came just before a lay-led financial boycott of the diocese… In a public letter, Lori pledged to hire an outside auditing firm to conduct an annual independent review of diocesan income and expenditures, and to publicly report its findings.

By Brian Clowes, Ph.D., Human Life International – In the 1960s, revolution ― especially of the sexual variety ― permeated the air, wafting even into the hallowed chambers of the Supreme Court of the United States.  The justices set about finding a means by which they could enact a far-reaching liberal agenda, and concluded that extending the right to privacy beyond its natural and legitimate dimensions would be the ideal means for accomplishing this objective.

By Nate Jackson, Patriot Post – After Trump’s weekend tweets, we argued — contrary to the prevailing Beltway political “wisdom” — that Trump was deliberately uniting Democrats behind Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley (collectively known as “The Squad”) for the simple reason that they are anti-American radical leftists who are unattractive to most voters.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – David Daleiden, CMP founder and project lead, told LifeNews: “Now that all the facts, evidence, and testimony are in, even Planned Parenthood’s favorite judge refuses to buy into the abortion giant’s fake news and lies about the honest motives and protected speech of pro-life citizen journalists. Planned Parenthood is a government-sponsored crime syndicate selling baby body parts like widgets on an assembly line and should only appear in federal court as a criminal defendant.”

By Joan Desmond, National Catholic Register – The Times reported that Dr. Wen began to make waves after “she directed her staff to add new pages to the Planned Parenthood website about topics like asthma and the common cold — conditions that its clinics do not typically treat. One of her first major campaigns was simply called, ‘This is health care.’”… “Planned Parenthood was caught off guard and ill prepared to deal with the recent attacks,” reported the Times. “Instead of aggressively refuting the claims that Democrats were legalizing ‘infanticide,’ Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights groups were slow to form a cohesive and effective response.”

By Fr. Shenan J. Boquet, Human Life International – Most Reverend José H. Gomez said, For thousands of years, just about everyone intuitively understood that it was a good thing to commit one’s life to another in marriage, and then to bring children into the world. But for unusual cases, such as those entering the priesthood, or monasteries and convents, this is what the overwhelming majority of people would aspire to, and expect to do. Now, however, for a variety of reasons, “many young people are debating whether it is ‘ethical’ to have kids,” the archbishop noted. “There is an even larger conversation going on among millennials about the ‘value’ of starting a family.”

Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D., Ruth Institute – Morse said, “The goal of mental health professionals used to be to help individuals overcome harmful tendencies. Mental health professionals used to believe that children deserved love and support from their parents. Now the APA is completely ignoring the impact of adult sexual behavior on children. Their only considerations seem to be making adults feel good about themselves and fighting ‘stigmatization.’’’

By Rocco Palmo, Whispers in the Loggia – For a quarter-century, that verse of the Psalmist was Dr Robert Schuller’s sign-on from this crystal sanctuary as he began his Sunday broadcasts across the globe… and now, it’s fitting to return to it on this day, as one of American Christianity’s most prominent and cherished venues begins its second incarnation as a Catholic church and the seat of this 1.5 million-member diocese, now one of the US’ ten largest.

By Stephanie Gray – Since death is permanent, shouldn’t we err on the side of caution? In other words, if we had to choose between a society that either a) deprives someone of death when he wants it, or b) gives someone death before he actually wants it, which should we pick? The person being “deprived” of assisted suicide will still get death—just not at his own, personally-calculated time. But the person being deprived of life will never get that living time back.

By David Catron, American Spectator – It’s increasingly obvious that the Democratic Party is moribund and that its members know it. In a desperate attempt to survive, they have declared war on a chimera called “racism,” which they insist is endemic to American culture. Left-wing Democrats call centrist members of their own caucus racist for voting their conscience. Freshman Democrats accuse the Speaker of the House of racism for requesting that they behave with decorum. All Democrats insist that all Republicans are racists….

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – Just a few days after announcing that excavations inside the Vatican yielded no evidence to shed light on the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, the Vatican has now said that some human remains were found, and the investigation will continue. What’s going on here?.. The short answer: in all probability, not much. Not much, that is, of interest to anyone but historians and archeologists.

By Charlie Butts, Billy Davis, OneNewsNow – Democratic lawmakers in Illinois want to help girls sneak into abortion clinics and keep their parents in the dark, but a pro-life activist says the issue is about more than one controversial law… A 1995 law bars minors from getting an abortion without parental notification but now a proposal in the General Assembly would drop the old law entirely despite a “judicial bypass” option that is also on the books… “This is going to be for every girl,” she warns. “And actually, since we already are the abortion Mecca of the Midwest, this would allow sex traffickers [and] predators to bring young minor girls into the state to have abortions.”

By Mary Farrow, CNA – With a law banning abortions after roughly eight weeks of pregnancy and one remaining abortion clinic whose licensure is being debated in court, Missouri has been described as a state “hostile” to abortion… While the state may be increasingly restricting abortions, it has numerous programs that provide a wealth of resources and support to thousands of women in need… “Our aim is for those moms who want to give life to their baby, we provide them with all sorts of alternatives (to abortion),” Michael Meehan, Executive Director of Good Shepherd Children and Family Services in St. Louis, told CNA.

By Al Perrotta, The Stream – Today’s news feeds are still filled with outrage over President Trump’s tweets suggesting the America-loathing congresswomen “go home.” (And “then come back” … a crucial line conveniently edited out of the coverage.) “The President’s a racist!” the Democrats and their media allies scream in unison… when you pay attention what “The Squad” or “Quartet of Contempt” actually says — and what they don’t say — and what their like-minded followers do there’s but one conclusion: This isn’t about race. It’s about revolution. This weekend was proof. And God help us.

By Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews – Planned Parenthood is, first and foremost, an abortion business. And the firing of its new CEO less than a year after she was hired provides even more proof… Apparently, Wen, a doctor, was not aggressive enough in pushing Planned Parenthood’s pro-abortion agenda. Wen basically admitted as much in a public statement after her firing… “For me, as a doctor and a public health leader … providing essential primary and preventive care to millions of under-served women and families should always be the driving force of Planned Parenthood’s work,”. …

By Christine Valentine-Owsik, Legatus – Masculinity has gotten A twisted, faulty rap lately, as if it is an unfortunate leftover of days gone by… But true masculinity aligns with the cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude), upon which all other virtues hinge. Jesus Christ is the icon for true masculinity – He abided by His role under His Father’s plan, come what would, and plenty did.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – It is an awesome thing to fall into the hands of a living God (Heb 10:31). The most interesting passage to me is the third one, involving John the Beloved. This is the same John who, at the Last Supper, felt perfectly comfortable leaning back on the Lord’s shoulder and asking Him a question. Yet now as he beholds the full glory of Christ in the heavenly realm, John falls prostrate before Him. The Lord’s glory is fully unveiled here, and John, who appreciates the beauty and describes it to us, is ultimately compelled to fall down.

By Monica Showalter, American Thinker – Worse still, (Pelosi) says she’s using the churches to push this message out. A couple weeks ago at my Catholic church in San Diego, the priest played a strange video totally irrelevant to the Gospel read after the homily, showing the pope speaking about the importance of welcoming migrants with no cognizance of rule of law or justice. It was strange, not just for its moral blindness to any balance or justice, but also because of the pope’s role in supporting Venezuela’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro, the foremost creator of millions of refugees in the world today.

By Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews – Shawn Carney’s leadership at 40 Days for Life has impacted lives across the globe… Since it began in 2004, the pro-life organization has helped to save 16,000 babies from abortion, The Blaze reports… Now an international outreach, 40 Days for Life began 15 years ago in a small Texas town. Carney and other pro-lifers began praying for an end to abortion in their community and for the Planned Parenthood workers to have a change of heart… “We’ve helped 190 abortion facility workers have a change of heart [and] leave their jobs,” Carney told the podcast. “We know of 16,000 babies that are alive today that we can affirm.”

By Bruce Walker, Church Militant – Catholic apologist Matt Fradd is calling Google’s recent cancellation of a talk he was scheduled to deliver an effective ban because of his outspoken adherence to Catholic beliefs… A self-described Roman Catholic apologist with more than 17,000 YouTube subscribers, Fradd told his viewers he waived his speaking fee to talk to a group of Google employees on the topic of the harmful effects of pornography…

Catholic News Agency – Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, who was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 2012 and 2017, presented an analysis with a series of objections and criticisms of the Instrumentum Laboris, or working document, of the Synod on the Amazon, to be held in Rome in October… The following is the full text of Cardinal Mueller’s analysis: “For any other foundation no man can lay, but that which is laid; which is Christ Jesus.” (1 Cor 3:11)

By Caleb Parke, Fox News – The Trump administration stopped taxpayer dollars from going to abortion referrals at publicly funded family planning centers on Monday.Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, sued the administration, along with 20 states and the District of Columbia, in an attempt to stop Health and Human Services, or HHS, from diverting Title X family planning funding going to abortions. But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, with two judges appointed by Trump, rejected the plea.

By Walter E. Williams, The Daily Signal – Here’s a suggestion. How about setting up some high school rifle clubs? Students would bring their own rifles to school, store them with the team coach and, after classes, collect them for practice… You say: “Williams, you must be crazy! To prevent gun violence, we must do all we can to keep guns out of the hands of kids.”.. There’s a problem with this reasoning. Prior to the 1960s, many public high schools had shooting clubs.

Breitbart Texas – Federal authorities shut down one of the international ports of entry… The incident took place at the Ciudad Acuna-Del Rio Port of Entry when over 50 officers with U.S. Customs and Border Protection applied a series of security protocols to temporarily shut down vehicular traffic into Texas. According to the local radio station Rancherita Del Aire, CBP officers used heavy machinery to set up a series of concrete and metal barricades as well as barbed wire in an attempt to dissuade any migrants from rushing the border.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – A new translation of Mark’s Gospel was published recently that I find very appealing: The Memoirs of St. Peter: A New Translation of the Gospel According to Mark, by Michael Pakaluk… As the title acknowledges, most scholars consider Mark’s Gospel to be that of Simon Peter. Tradition says that Mark was Peter’s secretary or scribe, and the recollections he recorded are really those of Peter.

By Paul Kengor, Crisis Magazine – “The Vatican’s new document on gender will be used to oppress and harm LGBT people. It perpetuates false stereotypes that encourage hatred, bigotry, and violence.”… That statement from New Ways Ministry was tweeted by Fr. James Martin in reaction to an important new Vatican statement by Pope Francis’s Congregation for Catholic Education. Issued during Pride Month, the 31-page statement is written for Catholic educational institutions.

By John-Henry Westen, LifeSiteNews – There has been much concern among faithful Catholics about the upcoming Amazon Synod. Progressive Cadinals from Germany and the Vatican have already held a private meeting strategizing about how to get the Synod to approve a female diaconate. Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, one of the two remaining dubia cardinals, issued a strong critique of the working document of the synod saying its real intent is “the abolition of priestly celibacy and the introduction of a female priesthood – beginning with female deacons.”

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – Planned Parenthood abortion business CEO Leanna Wen has been fired after just 10 months on the job. The abortion corporation wants a more aggressively pro-abortion activist as its leader as it heads into the crucial 2020 presidential election… According to the New York Times, the Planned Parenthood board engaged in “hours of negotiations” and ultimately canned Wen, citing the need for a “more aggressive political leader.”

By Peter Jesserer Smith, National Catholic Register – More millennial women than ever are turning to fertility-awareness-based methods, not simply for a natural way to plan their families, but as a way to keep track of their bodily health and well-being without putting hormones or artificial devices into their bodies… “I’m a millennial, and we’re just kind of tired of anything that looks like it’s from the 1970s, especially for our health,” Cassie Moriarity, a 29-year-old Catholic woman living in New York City, told the Register.

By Theresa Hammond, Catholic Exchange – Even without as dramatic a reason as mine, many people experience “motherlessness” in their own lives. Sometimes, it is something as simple as wanting a mother who you are separated from geographically. Others may have experienced the death of their mother, or may have been separated from their mother at birth or during childhood. Mary wants to be that mother, the mother to those who are currently without one.

By Daniel Davis and Katrina Trinko, The Daily Signal – Is it fair to distribute Electoral College votes and congressional seats by counting all people, not just citizens? Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., is suing the federal government because he thinks Alabama will be hurt because of the current methodology of the census. Read his interview, posted below, or listen on the podcast…

By Inés San Martín, Cruxnow – Francis, history’s first pope from the global south, is no exception to the Argentine rule of thumb… “He’s too political”; “he doesn’t care about us”; “he’s afraid of the reception he’ll get, that’s why he’s avoiding coming home”; “he’s too leftist”; and even “he’s not Catholic enough” are some of the many phrases people from all walks of life used during Crux’s first 48 hours in Argentina.

By Hadley Arkes, The Catholic Thing – The scene: Outside the Supreme Court of the U.S. in March 2014. I was on my way to the Court to take in the oral argument in the Hobby Lobby case… The question was whether the Green family, owners of the Hobby Lobby stores – and providing already generous medical coverage to their employees – would be obliged, under Obamacare, to provide coverage for contraception and abortion. The family bore serious moral objections to abortion, reinforced by their religious convictions. Eventually, a closely divided Court would come down on the side of the Greens.

By Tom Elliott, News Grabien – After Democrats spent weeks calling on Americans to up the pressure against agents and facilities enforcing U.S. border policy, one man attempted to firebomb an Immigration and Customs and Enforcement facility on Saturday… The man, a self-described member of Antifa, 69-year-old Willem Van Spronsen, was killed in an ensuing shootout with police… The activist was armed with a rifle, satchel, Molotov Cocktails, and flares, attempted to detonate a propane bomb to ignite nearby ICE detainment facilities.

By D. Scott Sibley, Institute for Family Studies – The research literature is becoming increasingly clear about the substantial importance of fathers in the lives of their children. Unfortunately, far too many children in the United States and throughout the world experience father loss. As discussed previously on this blog, father loss can negatively impact children in a variety of different ways, even on a biological level. Compounding this issue are myths about fatherhood that are perpetuated in our society…..

By Roberto de Mattei, Corrispondenza Romana – If Pope Francis should be accused of a crime by any judge, in any part of the world, he should divest himself of his office as Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church and submit himself to the judgment of a court. This is the logical and necessary conclusion to the stunning decision by which the Holy See denied diplomatic immunity to the French Apostolic Nuncio, Monsignor Luigi Ventura, accused of sexual molestations.

By Jarrett Stepman, The Stream – Since there’s often confusion as to what socialism really is, I decided to attend the Socialism 2019 conference at the Hyatt Hotel in Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend… The conference, which had the tag line “No Borders, No Bosses, No Binaries,” contained a cross-section of the most pertinent hard-left thought in America… The walls of the various conference rooms were adorned with posters of Karl Marx and various depictions of socialist thinkers and causes.

By Chad Groening, OneNewsNow – A conservative pundit and former Republican leader says the feud between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and upstart freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will continue to grow… Pelosi (D) recently went on the warpath against President Trump, claiming his aim is to “make America white again.” But Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is accusing Pelosi of singling out newly-elected women of color. (Pelosi’s) feud intensified with Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) following the four leftists’ opposition to the border funding bill.

By Abby Johnson, Fox News – National media were covering their field trip, which reached its lowest point when aides to the Congressmen and women gave them cheap toys, which they, in turn, gave to the little kids at the respite center in front of all the cameras for the ideal photo op… They were dressed in starched suits and pressed dresses, pants, high heels, and polished shoes… I introduced myself and said we had an 18-wheeler arriving at the respite center in the next 20 minutes full of supplies for these poor people, who had nothing and needed help unloading it. I told them their cheap toys and photo op wasn’t helping these people… If they truly wanted to help, they could lend a hand in unloading the semi-truck in the 102-degree heat with all of us women who came from all over Texas to help.

By Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews – Abortion activists demonstrated how easy it is to abort an unborn baby during a progressive political conference Friday in Philadelphia.Using a watermelon to simulate the procedure, abortion activists with Abortion Access Front tried to convince people that it is both simple and safe to abort an unborn baby with a plastic manual vacuum aspirator and cannula, The Blaze reports. Never mind that watermelons are not unique human beings with heartbeats.

By James Barese, Crisis Magazine – Most of us have probably wondered why people who clearly do not believe in Catholicism choose to remain within the Church, actively working to undermine its doctrines, structures, and practices. I have thought of more and more such reasons as time has gone on, some of whose validity has recently been confirmed by my reading of a novel which celebrates an Anglican priestess’s entry into a lesbian relationship following her rejection of belief in God.

By Patrick J. Buchanan – The four — AOC, Tlaib, Pressley, Omar — have no clout in the Democratic caucus. But because of the confrontations they have caused and the controversy they have created, they have a massive media following… Paradoxically, their interests in winning cheers as the fighting arm of the Democratic Party coincide with the interests of Donald Trump. He entertains and energizes his base by answering in kind their attacks on… He is now assuming the old “America! Love it or Leave it!” stance in going after the four women as anti-American ingrates.

By Sandro Magister, L’Espresso – Last July 8 Pope Francis previewed another fragment of what will be the future Vatican curia, once its new configuration definitively goes into effect… He appointed six nuns, all superiors general of their respective orders, among the members of the congregation for religious, breaking with the practice that did not allow women to be part of the curial congregations, until now made up only of bishops and cardinals, or at the most of male superiors general.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – In Scripture there is an “absolute” way of speaking that many of us moderns misconstrue. For example, Jesus says (quoting Hosea 6:6), For I desire mercy not sacrifice (Matt 9:13). To those untrained in Jewish and biblical idioms, the meaning would seem to be, “Skip all the sacrifice; God just wants you to be nice.” However, that misses the point of the idiom, which more accurately means this: “Practice mercy without neglecting sacrifice, for sacrifice is in service of mercy.”

By Fr. Nicholas Sheehy, LC, Catholic Exchange – After seeing a vision of Hell, it might seem that the rest of the Fatima message would be relatively humdrum, but this is not the case… The second secret has to do with the ending of the First World War and a warning about the coming of the Second World War if the world would not change and pray the rosary. In this part of the message, the Blessed Virgin promotes devotion to her Immaculate Heart and asks for the consecration of Russia to herself.

By Dr. Élise Rose, LifeSiteNews – The US public certainly awarded the film unexpected box office success. Unplanned grossed over $18 million in its US theatrical release, triple its minimal budget. I believe that Unplanned is helping to break down our society’s denial about the true nature of abortion. More and more people are coming to recognize the violent nature of the procedure.

By John Zmirak, The Stream – So now San Francisco liberal Rep. Nancy Pelosi is fighting off reckless charges of “racism” from her fellow Democrats. Like Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responds to the slightest criticism of her policies by smearing critics as bigots… First the left finds a poster girl who belongs to a designated “victim” group. Then it treats her policies and person as suddenly sacrosanct. That is, literally sacred, by the tenets of the new religion of Intersectionalism.

By Bruce Walker, Church Militant – (T)he president has been tremendously successful with the confirmations of constitutionalist judicial nominees… Thus far, the Ninth Circuit Court boasts six Trump appointees with a seventh recently confirmed… To date, Trump has successfully nominated 41 appeals courts judges; 80 district court judges; and two Supreme Court justices, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh… The court’s July determination upholds Trump’s Protect Life Rule, which was promulgated in March.

By Cathy Ruse, The Stream – The world recently learned that the American Psychological Association promotes “polyamory,” “swinging,” and “relationship anarchy.” Their experts say it’s healthy and ethical. They’re crazy… Leftists who run our nation’s public schools love to hide behind the skirts of the APA when it comes to crazy Sex Ed. So in a recent column, I wondered how long it would take for them to push polyamory on the pubertal… Then I learned they already do…

By Stephen Schmalhofer, First Things – When historian Henry Adams and his fellow Americans—including Augustus St. Gaudens, Dorothy Chanler, Willa Cather, and Edith Wharton—traveled from the New World to our old home in Europe, they found the Mother of the Word Incarnate waiting for them. As their lives demonstrate, the Virgin has influenced the art and culture of America—though the nation has never quite come home to her.

By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing – It’s easy to be agitated over what’s happening these days in the Church and the world. Much harder to see what might be promising, especially when secular leaders and bishops not only appear incapable of addressing looming challenges, but actually contribute to our sense of an age spinning out of control.

By Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews – In a victory for the rights of unborn babies, an Oklahoma judge upheld a state law Friday that bans brutal dismemberment abortions that tear nearly fully-formed unborn babies limb from limb… Tulsa World reports Oklahoma County District Judge Cindy Truong upheld the 2015 pro-life law in a case brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Tulsa Women’s Clinic, an abortion facility.

By Steve Jordahl, OneNewsNow – Former Southern Baptist Conference (SBC) President Jack Graham – who currently pastors the 42,000-member Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas – pulled no punches in one of his latest sermons titled, “Socialism and Capitalism.”… “No one serious about their Christian faith can be serious about supporting socialism,” Graham argued. “Socialism is totally secular, and it predicated on atheism. That is a fact.”

By Angelo Stagnaro, National Catholic Register – Most people, Catholics included, don’t realize how indebted the Church, Europe and the world are to St. Benedict of Nursia. The very presence of his monks in their monasteries became a stabilizing, civilizing factor no matter where they planted themselves. It was from these centers of great learning and prayer that monks and nuns went about their zealous work of evangelizing.

By Regis Nicoll, Crisis Magazine – If you want to see a relativist sink into a sophistic seizure, ask him about the “virtues” of cruelty, rape, bigotry, exploitation, or the Holocaust. Even the most liberally minded secularist believes such things are wrong, but without a transcendent peg to hang his ethical system, he will be incapable of articulating a coherent moral argument against them.

By Fr. Dwight Longenecker – Compared to Bible Christians, most Catholics are woefully inadequate in their understanding. They don’t know how the whole sacred story fits together. They can’t tell the difference between Galatians or Genesis, Numbers or Nehemiah and they probably think Philippians was written to Catholics in the Philippines… Most of all, there seems to be a terrible lack of understanding of the gospel itself.

By Ana Brennan, J.D., LifeNews – Earlier this month a heartbreaking story about an IVF “mix up” was reported. It seems the fertility clinic responsible for handling embryos during the IVF process accidentally implanted the wrong embryos into a woman. Instead of giving birth to twin daughters, the woman gave birth to two boys who were not genetically hers. Not only did this woman have to relinquish the children she just gave birth to, but the clinic has yet to locate her unborn daughters.

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – But there is a far greater evil (than any “Pride” Parade) that goes largely unchecked and mostly unchallenged in the Catholic Church: the ongoing problem of priests and prelates and their lay underlings who openly disseminate their own spin on LGBT propaganda. What makes their actions grossly evil—is that they do so in the name of God.

Msgr. Charles Pope – What is interesting is that Scripture says it is not sharks that inspire fear among the animals; it is we: And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall on every living creature on the earth, every bird of the sky, every creature that crawls on the ground, and all the fish of the sea. They are delivered into your hand (Gen 9:1-2).

By Lisa Bourne, LifeSiteNews – When Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, shared an essay on Twitter by respected Catholic commentator, journalist and author Phil Lawler this week, he spoke with typical clarity on a crucial issue related to the salvation of souls while again pledging to do his job and defend the Catholic faith… “As a bishop, I will do my best to ‘guard the deposit of faith, entire & incorrupt’ from the wolves who attack it. Mercy abhors bigotry AND sin.”

By The Editors, EWTN News – All the more reason, then, to welcome a summer of saints. We celebrate Pope Francis’ announcement that Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman will be canonized with four others Oct. 13, and we rejoice in the Pope’s formal approval of a miracle attributed to the intercession of Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen, paving the way for his beatification. The date had not been announced at press time.

By Michael R. Egnor, M.D., The Stream – (Researchers at Franciscan University) found this in pregnant rats who got the drugs… The leader of the research team was Dr. Stephen Sammut. He is a professor of psychology. He reports that rats who were administered the abortion-inducing drugs mifepristone and misoprostol early in pregnancy had significant symptoms of depression and behavioral change. They appeared prone to severe stress.

By Fr. Mike Schmitz, Ascension Presents – Fr. Mike goes all the way back to Genesis to explain why Catholics have a pope. God established the kingdom of Israel with the twelve sons of Jacob. Centuries later, he appointed David as the king who would unite this kingdom. Centuries after that kingdom was divided, Jesus established a new kingdom by appointing the twelve apostles.

By Bethany Blankley, The Hayride – According to a new report produced by Worldometers.info, the leading cause of death worldwide of human beings in 2018 was abortion– killing 42 million people… The independent site collects data from governments and other reputable organizations, reports data with estimates and projections… Breitbart News compared the number of deaths from abortion to leading causes of death, including cancer, HIV/AIDS, traffic accidents and suicide, and found that abortions far outnumber them all.

By Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register – As prior of the Monastero di San Benedetto in Monte (“The Monastery of St. Benedict in the Mountains”), set in the rolling Umbrian hills just outside St. Benedict’s birthplace of Norcia in central Italy, Father Nivakoff has faced a traumatic three years since the 6.6-magnitude earthquake devastated the town in the early hours of Oct. 30, 2016… The severe tremor, which caused some damage even in Rome, made the monastery uninhabitable.

The Patriot Post – “Nine-year-old Brady Snakovsky from Strongsville, Ohio dreams of being a police officer one day. When he was 8 years old, he was watching ‘Live PD’ — a modern version of ‘Cops’ — and noticed that while the officers wore bulletproof vests, the K9 officers were not.”

By Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow – Leaked video from a public school seminar in California shows an ACLU attorney coaching teachers about helping students hide abortions from their parents… The video, recorded in June, also shows the attorney and school staff discussing explicit sex-ed lessons and how California law ensures students must sit through them without parental involvement.

By Fr. Richard Heilman, Roman Catholic Man – Venerable Fulton Sheen tried to sound the alarm, as he explained how such evil is allowed to advance … “Why is it that so few realize the seriousness of our present crisis? Partly because men do not want to believe their own times are wicked, partly because it involves too much self-accusation, and principally because they have no standards outside of themselves by which to measure their times … Only those who live by faith really know what is happening in the world. The great masses without faith are unconscious of the destructive processes going on.”

By Catholic News Agency – The opening of two tombs on Vatican property revealed both graves to be completely empty, providing no answers in the unsolved disappearance of an Italian girl 36 years ago, the Vatican reported Thursday… “The research has given negative results: no human findings or funerary urns were found,” stated Holy See spokesman Alessandro Gisotti July 11.

By Martina Moyski, Church Militant – Cardinal Burke is noted for co-authoring “Seeking Clarity: A Plea to Untie the Knots in Amoris Laetitia,” a letter to Pope Francis asking for clarification on Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”), the post-synodal apostolic exhortation by Pope Francis on love in the family signed on March 19, 2016… Burke said that he shares Francis’ devotion to Our Lady, Untier of Knots, so in that spirit, he, along with Cdl. Walter Brandmüller, Cdl. Carlo Caffarra and Cdl. Joachim Meisner, asked the Pope “to untie some of the knotty statements of the document for the good of souls.”

By Allison Low, Catholic Stand – Did you know that among Christians, the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe is the most visited pilgrimage site in the world? It is estimated there are 20 million visitors to the shrine every year. To put this in perspective, Rome is the second most visited site with approximately 7-9 million visitors a year.

By Kevin Clark, Crisis Magazine – As expected, the U.S. Women’s National Team won the Women’s World Cup. As also expected, members of the women’s team, led by chief spokeswoman Megan Rapinoe, were known as much for their politics as for their play. Rapinoe got it going with her comment that she wasn’t going to visit the “f–ing” White House if she was invited….

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – The abortion chain receives about $50 million to $60 million in Title X funds annually, but that could change now that the new rules are being implemented. The administration’s changes to Title X family planning grants have angered the abortion chain Planned Parenthood, prompting a lawsuit, but they provide hope for life-affirming pregnancy centers, which can now compete with the abortion giant for the federal funds

Catholic News Agency – A recently introduced bill in Ohio would add scientific information about the development of the unborn child to the state’s public and charter school curriculum… HB 90, known as the “Humanity of the Unborn Child” bill, would direct the state board of education and department of health to create educational programing that “provides accurate, scientifically verifiable information concerning the probable anatomical and physiological characteristics of the unborn child” throughout a pregnancy.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – We tend to rely too heavily on numbers, thinking that something is good, or right, or successful if a lot of people support it. Of this tendency we must be very careful. Is our power or rectitude rooted in numbers, in popularity, in profit, or in God? In calling for a count of his people, David seems to be seeking confidence in numbers rather than in God; this is a sin.

By Janet E. Smith, EWTN News – “Hide the handsome ones.” That was what was “jokingly” said when Theodore McCarrick would visit seminaries. It disgusts me that such “jokes” — which clearly portrayed a reality — did not lead to a thorough investigation of McCarrick decades ago. The likely reason they did not was that, for decades, U.S. seminaries not only tolerated but recruited and favored seminarians who have sex with males.

By William Kilpatrick, Crisis Magazine – Thanks to Pope Francis, the Vatican now joins the growing list of the world’s sanctuary cities. If you’re a clergyman wanted by civil authorities or Church authorities in your native land, the Vatican will offer you a safe haven and, quite possibly, a cushy job… When Msgr. Battista Ricca got in trouble over a string of sex scandals, he was rewarded with a prominent position in the Vatican Bank. And when Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta of Oran, Argentina, was credibly accused of abusing seminarians, he was whisked off to Rome and ensconced in a position specially created for him….

By Diane Montagna, LifeSiteNews – A Benedictine theologian has joined the chorus of voices criticizing the working document of the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, calling it “biodegradable Christianity.”… In an analysis published by Italian journalist Aldo Maria Valli on July 2, Dom Giulio Meiattini, a monk of the abbey of Madonna della Scala in the southern Italian province of Bari, said the Instrumentum laboris proposes and contains nothing less than a “reversal” of the “very idea of Church and Christian faith.”

By Joseph Pronechen, National Catholic Register – An 8-year-old in central Illinois has an indelible connection to soon-to-be Blessed Fulton Sheen… Archbishop Sheen is set to beatified, after Pope Francis’ formal July 6 approval of a miracle brought the cause of Archbishop Sheen’s canonization one step further… James Fulton Engstrom, who lives near Peoria, was the recipient of the miracle leading to the forthcoming beatification of Peoria-area native Sheen. His parents, Travis and Bonnie Engstrom, prayed for Archbishop Sheen’s intercession in 2010.

By Gene Thomas Gomulka, Church Militant – The even greater “elephant in the room” that neither the media nor the U.S. bishops — including Bp. Barron — want to expose is the amount of abuse that Pope Francis himself covered up in Buenos Aires prior to his papal election. How can the Pope discipline bishops for covering up or under-reporting sex abuse when most bishops know he himself covered-up innumerable abuse cases in his archdiocese with a population of 2.5 million Catholics?

By Matthew Schmitz, First Things – George Will is drawn to the false charms of liberalism. He now says that conservatives “must accept the task of reconciling people to the disruption and churning that accompanies economic and cultural dynamism.” It would be a remarkable display of economic and cultural dynamism, one Will presumably would be obliged to cheer, if he and the other True Cons were replaced by writers……

By Daniel Philpott, Public Discourse – On July 8, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched a Commission on Unalienable Rights, charging it with the task of rethinking the foundations of human rights in a time when “gross violations continue throughout the world, sometimes even in the name of human rights” and when “International institutions designed and built to protect human rights have drifted from their original mission.”

By Aaron Benavides, Catholic Herald – Cardinal Sarah said Lambert ‘died a martyr’ while the Pontifical Academy for Life called his death a ‘defeat for humanity’… On Thursday morning, Vincent Lambert, the severely disabled Frenchman who was at the centre of a legal battle, died in Reims, France… In a tweet on Thursday morning, the Pontifical Academy for Life said Lambert’s death was “a defeat for our entire humanity.”

By Debra Heine, PJ Media – (Damian Thompson) editor-in-chief of the Catholic Herald announced last week that he is parting ways with the weekly paper because he and “the new owners” “do not agree on the future direction of the company.”… he made the announcement on Twitter following his recent hard-hitting appearance on EWTN’s “The World Over” in which he made a number of highly critical remarks about the Vatican’s Amazon Synod working document (which he called “garbage”), the cowardly Catholic bishops of the United Kingdom and the United States, and the scandal-plagued pope who refuses to answer any questions about any the clerical abuse scandals currently rocking the Vatican.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – One of the most significant losses in the modern era is that the biblical narrative is no longer in the hearts and minds of most people. Scripture is the history of the human family, told in story form by God Himself. He tells us how and why we were made and why, as well as what happened to make things the way they are today. Why do we experience infinite longing though we live in a finite world? Why do we struggle with sin? How can we be rescued from sin and death?

By Fr. John Lavers, Church Militant – It has been a year since public and credible allegations were first made against the former Cdl. McCarrick, known now as just Theodore McCarrick… Last year it was the archdiocese of New York that first made public the allegations against McCarrick, and since then, what has happened?… Who is (or was) leading the internal investigation against McCarrick within the archdiocese? What is the current status of the investigation? Has the investigation against McCarrick been closed?

By Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Public Discourse – Serve the poor. Help the weak. Protect the unborn child. Speak the truth about the beauty and order of creation: Male and female he created them (Gen 5:2). Fight for your right to love and serve God, and for others to do the same. Defend the dignity of marriage and the family, and witness their meaning and hope to others by the example of your lives.

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – Yesterday’s CWN headlines included a remarkable interview with Cardinal Jozef De Kesel of Brussels, in which the cardinal welcomed the arrival of secularism in Europe. Read the whole interview (if you have the stomach for it), and see if you can detect therein any statement, any argument, any suggestion that could not have been endorsed by an atheist or a pagan. I can’t.

By Fr. Roger Landry, National Catholic Register – The sacraments are signs and means of intimate communion with God: they bring him to abide in us and us in him; and because God’s life is eternal, the sacraments are all aimed ultimately at heaven. The Sacrament of Matrimony is directed toward the mutual sanctification of the spouses and the procreation and education of children to be saints as well.

By Star Parker, Daily Signal – Gallup asked, “How proud are you to be an American?”.. Seventy-six percent of Republicans said “extremely proud,” compared with 22% of Democrats… Broken down by age, 63% of those over 65 said “extremely proud,” and only 24% of those 18 to 29… This tells us something about Nike’s recent move to pull its Betsy Ross flag sneakers from the marketplace, having taken guidance from its ex-football star anti-hero, now-Nike corporate spokesman, Colin Kaepernick. Kaepernick claims that America’s first flag is associated with the era of slavery.

By Mike Most, Crisis Magazine – I provide the following glossary as a service to those unwoke, unhip noctambulants who, like me, find themselves obliviously sleepwalking through the dreamscape of contemporary American culture… Abortion: “…a form of killing that we need to be able to defend.” The murder of children in the womb is an “acceptable violence,” justified by the “unacceptable violence” that an unborn baby “metes out” to its mother, the “gestator.”

By Mary Margaret Olohan, LifeNews – AB-329, otherwise known as the California Healthy Youth Act, was created in 2016 and has several aimed purposes… The bill aims to teach K-12 students how to ward off HIV and other STDs, to teach “healthy attitudes” towards sexual orientation, gender, and relationships, and to “promote understanding of sexuality as a normal part of human development.”… “There is a clear political agenda to destroy the traditional family in America,” Gallagher told the DCNF.

By Fr. Dwight Longenecker, The Stream – Contradicting the impression given by the bad news media, we are less violent than in ages past. Homicide rates in Europe and the USA have fallen dramatically over the last couple of hundred years. We have fewer nuclear weapons stockpiled and fewer people live under oppressive tyrannical regimes… Other charts show a startling zoom upward. People are living longer. Life expectancy leveled out for centuries at about 35 or 40. In 1900, the trend began to move upward. Now most people will live into their 70s. Furthermore, our quality of life is better in our later years…..

By Doug Mainwaring, LifeSiteNews – In a surprise move, a proposed California law which would have forced Catholic priests to violate the seal of confession was tabled yesterday after the bill’s author realized the measure lacked sufficient support to pass… The Angelus, a publication of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, attributed the shelving of Senate Bill 360 to “a remarkable grassroots campaign mounted by the state’s Catholics, members of other faith groups, and religious liberty advocates from across the country.”

By Stephen Beale, Catholic Exchange – Thanks to the Pentecostal movement, contemporary Christian culture often associates experiences of the Holy Spirit with ecstasy or enthusiasm… Scripture, however, shows us that often it’s quite the opposite. Rather than a surge of positive emotions or a rush of happy feelings, the Holy Spirit often leads us into our darkest nights, the depths of suffering, and our own personal crosses.

By Bree A. Dail, LifeSiteNews – The Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong has spoken out forcefully against the Vatican’s newest “pastoral document” for the Chinese Church which gives reasons for why priests should register with the communist government. Cardinal Joseph Zen presented nine criticisms to Pope Francis and Cardinal Pietro Parolin on a recent trip to Rome, July 1, that outline his concerns about the document.

By Fr. Shenan J. Boquet, Human Life International – Father Paul Marx, OSB, (once) said, “If the Philippines falls to the Culture of Death, we have lost.”… The Philippines, with a population of nearly 110 million, is one of the last bastions of Catholicism in the world, with eighty-three percent being Catholic. In 2021 it will celebrate 500 years of Catholicism. Ten million Filipinos live outside their homeland, influencing cultures and societies around the world. This is a rich and vibrant culture whose identity is synonymous with its Catholic faith; however, “new” influences and values are being introduced with a radically different message and agenda.

By Philip Kosloski, Aleteia – Archbishop Fulton Sheen was well-known during his life for his practical spiritual advice, giving the ordinary lay person tools for spiritual success. One of the main pieces of advice that he stressed in his various writings and autobiography was a daily practice that gave him the energy he needed to have a successful day… When he was ordained a priest he resolved to spend an hour of prayer each day before the Blessed Sacrament.

Fr. Mike Schmitz, Ascension Presents – We hear the phrase “in the world but not of it” quite often. But how do we live that out in our everyday lives? Fr. Mike gives a crash course on how to follow Christ in situations where there may be tension between you and someone you’re close to… Reminding us of Matthew 10:34, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” Fr. Mike explains that Jesus is a cause of division. As followers of Christ, we have to acknowledge and accept the painful reality that following him will cause us to be divided from many people we love.

By Alan Shlemon, Stand to Reason – The world’s smallest surviving baby, Baby Saybie, was born just 30 minutes from my house. She weighed 8.6 ounces or approximately the weight of a large apple. Saybie’s mother experienced severe pregnancy complications and was forced to give birth via emergency cesarean section at just 23 weeks gestation (normal pregnancy is around 40 weeks). The doctors worked heroically to provide Baby Saybie life-saving medical care.

By Bradley Eli, M.Div., Ma.Th., Church Militant – President Donald Trump is defending the rights of all Americans to live a moral life and highlighted his fight at the recent Faith and Freedom Coalition (FFC) in Washington, D.C… “We’re cherishing our nation’s religious heritage once again,” said Trump. “My administration has taken historic action to protect religious liberty. We are protecting the conscience rights of doctors, and nurses, and teachers, and groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor. We’re with them.”

By Fr. Ed Broom, OMV, Catholic Exchange – Saint Paul exhorts us: “Glorify God in your bodies… your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.” (1 Cor 6:19-20) Saint Peter builds on this all-important concept by expressing the value of our person and our eternal salvation with these words: “You were redeemed (bought back) not by silver or gold, nor by the blood of animals, but by the precious Blood of Christ.” (1 Pet 1:18-19)

By Jay W. Richards, Ph.D., The Stream – The rise of smart machines, robots, and automation does not mean the end of work or the end of civilization. It does, however, mean that in the next twenty years or so, millions of today’s jobs could disappear. If you’re a student, you’ll need to adapt to an age of massive disruption and new opportunities. That means you’ll need to learn from tough breaks, job churn, and failure.

By Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews – The American Civil Liberties Union is pushing forward with its plan to stop a new Missouri law that protects unborn babies from abortion after their heartbeats are detectable… On Sunday, the abortion advocacy group held several meetings across the state to drum up support for a petition to repeal the law, ABC News 17 reports. The pro-life law passed the state legislature in May, but abortion activists hope to repeal it through voter referendum in 2020.

By Michael Hichborn, Lepanto Institute – But in the second paragraph of Carroll’s response, she explains very clearly how the $750,000 grant will help expand ISN’s push for homosexual and transsexual inclusion in the Church. She says: Through their Strategic National Grant, ISN will be enabled to significantly expand their advocacy capacity — forming leaders, networking and animating Jesuit institutions, and building on the success of existing ISN programs such as the Campaign for Hospitality and the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice.

By Father Nicholas Blackwell O. Carm., Catholic Stand – The Gospel reading for the Solemnity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (John 19:25-27) reminds Carmelites where they must stand in order to animate the charism and life of Carmel within them. Mary’s embrace causes Carmelites to recall their origin. The Order’s primary foundation is to be found with Mary at the foot of her Son’s Cross. It is from this spiritual foundation that the Order’s earthly foundation began to take root upon Mount Carmel eleven hundred years after Christ’s crucifixion.

By Joshua Hren, Crisis Magazine – An expert on theological trends in the Amazon, Julio Loredo has demonstrated that the Synod is “nothing else than the culmination of liberation theology.” The Synod’s Instrumentum laboris gives credence to his claim; we read that “a Church called to be even more synodal begins by listening to the peoples and to the earth by coming into contact with the abundant reality of an Amazon full of life and wisdom.” Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger explains that for liberation theologians, the “conciliar emphasis on the people of God is transformed into a Marxist myth.”

By Msgr. Charles Pope – (In Lumen Gentium) the council Fathers say that very often people are deceived by the Evil One. Did you notice those words, “very often”? The great mass of “ignorant” humanity is not walking into Heaven. Rather, they are deceived and have let themselves be deceived… Jesus himself said, This is the judgment: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil (John 3:19)… Yes, the need is urgent. We need to be serious about this.

By Joseph Pronechen, EWTN News – “We are at the end of Christendom.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen said during a talk in 1947. Making clear he didn’t mean Christianity or the Church, he said, “Christendom is economic, political, social life as inspired by Christian principles. That is ending — we’ve seen it die. Look at the symptoms: the breakup of the family, divorce, abortion, immorality, general dishonesty.”

By Julia Meloni, LifeSiteNews – Forty-four years before he successfully led the crusade to elect Pope Francis, then-Fr. Cormac Murphy-O’Connor—a future member of the St. Gallen mafia—attended a 1969 synod under Pope Paul VI.  Listening to all the radical speeches challenging clerical celibacy, he suddenly felt “a rush of blood to the head,” as he recalls in An English Spring.  In “execrable Latin,” Murphy-O’Connor made an impromptu speech announcing that “perhaps the ordination of married men should be considered.”

By Jason Jones & John Zmirak, The Stream – Produced by the pro-life apostolate Life Dynamics with a mostly black cast of narrators and commentators, this film (Maafa 21: Black Genocide) claims that Planned Parenthood and other organizations and government programs that target the poor and try to block their reproduction are the 21st century’s answer to the Ku Klux Klan — which was founded by white Southern elites to keep down the “unruly” ranks of freed black slaves.

By Charles Coulombe, Catholicism.org – Tolkien himself was an interesting man. Forget the recent biopic. Born in South Africa and raised at the Birmingham Oratory, his Catholic faith was tested in the trenches of World War I (which killed all but one of his closest friends). Not even the jibing of fellow Oxford dons could weaken it. For that matter, the brilliance of Oxford in his time is breathtaking. One would have loved to have been present to hear him,…

By Dave Andrusko, LifeNews – A whopping 60% want abortion legal “only in a few circumstances” (39%) or “illegal in all circumstances” (21%)… That is a big, big jump of 7 points from just one year ago… There is an overall increased interest in abortion (“at a record high”). That is important but secondary. Look at which side has the largest increase in the percentage of people who will only vote for candidates who agree with them on abortion.

By Robert Knight, OneNewsNow – With a couple dozen Democratic presidential hopefuls vying to see who’s pinker, perhaps it’s time to contrast socialism with something more helpful and permanent: The Ten Commandments… Socialism teaches that wealth should be held in common ownership, controlled by the state. Hence, the Democrats’ constant push to have government confiscate ever more income and power… By contrast, the Bible teaches that God owns all things and that we’re merely stewards of His creation. When we look at each of the Ten Commandments, we see that they’re directly at odds with socialism.

By George Neumayer, The American Spectator – Cardinal Donald Wuerl “lies shamelessly” and “prevails upon” his chief of staff, Monsignor Charles Antonicelli, to “lie as well,” wrote Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò in his bombshell memo last year. Where is Antonicelli today? He is serving the relatively new archbishop of Washington, D.C., Wilton Gregory, in the same capacity!… It is business as usual under Gregory, a protégé of the clericalist monster Joseph Bernardin, a biographical detail that explains many of Gregory’s corrupt instincts.

By Philip Kosloski, Aleteia – The Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help has been the site of miraculous cures that have astonished pilgrims… In 1871 a massive fire near Peshtigo, Wisconsin, claimed nearly 2,500 lives and was on its way toward a chapel that was the sight of a Marian apparition… the Chapel of Our Lady of Good Help and the fenced property surrounding it were untouched… This miracle was only the beginning, and since then, many other people have been touched by the message of Our Lady of Good Help and have experienced both physical and spiritual healing.

By Fr. Mike Schmitz, Ascension Presents – How do we keep God at a distance? There are at least two ways that we go about it. Either we lay low and stay out of trouble, or we excel at whatever task we’ve currently been assigned to. Both strategies intend to keep God out of our lives so we can keep doing what we’re doing, because we’re comfortable doing it. If you’re in one of those camps, get ready because God can call you to something different any minute now.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – One of God’s stranger affections is the special love He had for Jacob of the Old Testament. We are reading through this story in daily Mass this week… According to some, the name Jacob means “grabber” or “usurper.” Even while still in his mother Rebekah’s womb, Jacob wrestled with his twin brother, Esau. Although Esau was born first, Jacob came forth grabbing his brother’s heel, hence his name.

By Nicolas Loris, The Daily Signal – In the 1970s, Americans were told we were in a global cooling crisis and if something wasn’t done, we’d enter a new ice age… When that didn’t happen, a few decades later we were told that entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend was not reversed by the year 2000… Despite the consistent failure of these apocalyptic warnings, that hasn’t stopped climate change alarmism.

By Brad Miner, The Catholic Thing – Pope Francis gave Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople, a reliquary containing bone fragments of St. Peter, uncovered by archaeologists in the 1960s. Bartholomew, who has strong ties to the Vatican, described the pope’s gift as “bold and brave.” It was certainly bold… But it struck me as odd that the pope would give away such an essential treasure of our Catholic heritage (truly part of the Church’s birthright), and I wondered if he even has the right to do so…

By Anthony Esolen, Crisis Magazine – These last few years, my wife and I have been restoring an old Victorian house that once was a rectory on our island in Nova Scotia, where we live in the summer. I can draw an analogy to between what we have done so far and what should be done in the Church. We might call it de-novation: the removal of worthless or banal or ugly stuff, once hailed as new, in order to reveal de novo the good things that have been hidden or forgotten….

By JD Flynn, CNA – Three months from now, the bishops of the Amazonian region will meet for a regional synod that has already garnered international attention. The synod is controversial because it has become to some theologians and Churchmen a kind of “proving ground” for theological and canonical agendas that are not directly connected to the Amazon… The recent history of Church synods suggests that the results of the meeting will likely not match the intensity of the rhetoric preceding it.

By Christopeher Manion, The Stream – “Immigration turns red states blue,” writes the Stream’s John Zmirak. How? Well, Hispanics constitute by far the largest group of immigrants in recent years, and they are likely to vote for Democrats. Hispanics, emerging from nations that eschew self-government, “would rather have a bigger government.” Why? It “provides more services than a smaller government which provides fewer services.”

By Courtney Grogan, CNA – Pope Francis approved the miracle attributed to Archbishop Fulton Sheen Friday, making possible the American television catechist’s beatification… The Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints promulgated the decree approving Sheen’s miracle on July 6… The miracle involves the unexplained recovery of James Fulton Engstrom, a boy born apparently stillborn in September 2010 to Bonnie and Travis Engstrom of the Peoria-area town of Goodfield. He showed no signs of life as medical professionals tried to revive him. The child’s mother and father prayed to Archbishop Sheen to heal their son.

By Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow – Babies born alive during botched abortions in Minnesota apparently have no chance at life – despite a current law designed to protect the preborn victims in the state… For the year 2018, figures show that abortions are down about 2 percent to under 10,000 – only the third time it has dropped below that level since the 1973 United States Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion from border to border.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNew – “As our nation celebrates Independence Day, we are proud to endorse the only presidential candidate who stands for the unalienable right to life,” said Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee told LifeNews. “From his first day in office, President Trump and his Administration have been dedicated to advancing policies that protect the fundamental right to life for the unborn, the elderly, and the medically dependent and disabled.”

By Andrew Kerr & Molly Prince, The Daily Caller News Foundation – Controversy over the Betsy Ross flag erupted Monday after Nike pulled a shoe featuring the American flag following a complaint from former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who alleged the flag was a symbol of racism… It doesn’t appear, however, Kaepernick has commented on the Betsy Ross flag that has been a part of the “Pavilion of American Flags” in San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza since 1964… The Betsy Ross flag flew outside San Francisco City Hall for the entirety of Kaepernick’s tenure with the San Fransisco 49ers from 2011 through 2016.

By Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, LifeSiteNews – But such behavior is by no means the worst.  Going back to the summit and its focus on the abuse of minors, I now wish to bring to your attention two recent and truly horrifying cases involving allegations of offenses against minors during Pope Francis’ tenure.  The pope and many prelates in the Curia are well aware of these allegations, but in neither case was an open and thorough investigation permitted. An objective observer cannot help but suspect that horrible deeds are being covered up.

By Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, AsiaNews – The problem is that the government has reneged on its promises to respect Catholic doctrine. In the civil registration of the clergy, it almost always requires the clergy to accept the principle of self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation of the Church in China (this could be completed with what the letter from Pope Benedict XVI says in point 7.8: “to adopt attitudes, make gestures and undertake commitments that are contrary to the dictates of their conscience as Catholics.”

By Steve McCann, American Thinker – After watching the first two Democratic Party presidential debates last week, it has become crystal-clear that there are embedded in this nation’s body politic prospective oligarchs who are overwhelming threats to the future of the nation. The Democratic Party and its puppetmasters are unquestionably a clear and present danger to the United States… The primary threat to this nation is not Donald Trump nor his supporters but an evolving autocratic oligarchy made up of the hierarchy of American Left, which includes elements of…

By Edward Pentin, EWTN News – the German cardinal sees an obvious “connection” between the agenda for the Oct. 6-27 synod and the “synodal path” proposed by some German bishops as a means to modify the Church’s teaching on sexual morality. He also discusses Pope Francis’ recent letter to German bishops, why he wrote his “Manifesto of Faith” in February, and why Pope St. John Paul II’s teachings appear to be given less attention during this pontificate.

By Ed Condon, First Things – Unmoored from concepts like Natural Law—which provided a common societal bedrock in previous centuries—the true, the good, and the right are now adrift, blown by the ever-stronger winds of legal positivism into whatever harbor awaits them. For a growing number of people, the Supreme Court’s decisions now make moral truths. Going beyond protection of common freedoms, they define the goods that underpin them.

By Deacon Keith Fournier, Catholic Online – As we reflect upon the Declaration of Independence this weekend we need to remember that our forebears were not declaring their independence from Divine Providence. Rather, they were trusting in the primacy of the Governance of God over their own lives and their noble undertaking… They sought independence from a monarchy which had become tyrannical precisely because it had forgotten the implications of the primacy of Divine Providence. The principles set forth in that Declaration were a rallying cry which called forth extraordinary sacrifice.

By Dorothy Cummings McLean, LifeSiteNews – An American Catholic bishop is calling for an investigation into a Vatican whistleblower’s most recent allegations concerning the Vatican and Pope Francis covering up of clerical sexual abuse… Bishop Joseph Strickland, the ordinary of Tyler, Texas linked on Twitter to a recent LifeSiteNews article containing material cut from an interview Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò gave the Washington Post… “Faithful Catholics who believe in the Eucharist & pray the rosary need to demand an investigation of this & a clear reporting of the truth,” Strickland tweeted.

By Michael Hichborn, Church Militant – A week and a half ago, The Lepanto Institute published an article illustrating the rampant promotion of homosexuality and transgenderism by an organization called the Ignatian Solidarity Network (ISN)… The USCCB’s anti-poverty program, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), is providing a strategic grant of $750,000 to ISN over the next three years… Alexandra Carroll, the USCCB’s communications manager for social mission, responded by claiming that ISN had not violated Catholic teaching…

By Matthew Cullinan Hoffman, LifeSiteNews- Archbishop Viganò told the Washington Post in an unpublished section of an interview that was recently obtained and published by LifeSiteNews that Pope Francis “essentially ignored” the dossier on Archbishop Peña Parra while appointing the Venezuelan to a top position in the Vatican… Viganò states that one accusation, involving Peña Parra seducing two candidates for the seminary in 1990, was reported by the alleged victims’ parents to the police, and the veracity of the accusations were confirmed in writing to the Secretariat of State by both the rector of the major seminary and by seminary’s spiritual director.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – (T)he absolute, detached freedom imagined by the world does not exist. Insisting on freedom without any connection to what is good and true does not free; it enslaves. True freedom exists within boundaries. Some things must be held constant and unyielding if there is to be freedom. Without rules, freedom breaks down and is crushed by anarchy, chaos, and power struggles. In the end, what makes us truly free is obeying the Father. Anything less is the slavery of sin.

By Mike Huckabee, The Stream – One of the most common pieces of false conventional wisdom is that “the government can’t legislate morality!”… But of course, they do it all the time. We have millions of laws, just to enforce society’s consensus of what’s morally right or wrong. Liberals used to protest this, and now they’re the chief generators of morality laws, usually bans on everything they find morally offensive, including smoking, using racist words (or the “wrong” pronoun), giving someone a plastic straw, etc. etc. etc. Each law comes with loopholes that someone will try to exploit, so government adds more laws.

By Jesse B. Russell, Crisis Magazine – However, all is not lost, and the recent case of Christian rugby player Israel Folau’s challenge to Globohomo totalitarianism is an inspiration to Catholics who increasingly find themselves and their families in the grip of enforced LGBT orthodoxy… A talented athlete of Tongan descent, Israel Folau has been waging a battle against Globohomo in Australia throughout these past several months. Formerly the highest paid man in Australian rugby, Folau was expelled from Rugby Australia in May of 2019 due to posting that homosexuals will go to hell unless they repent of their sins on his Instagram account a month earlier.

By Thomas Gallatin, Patriot Post – President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday, “The News Reports about the Department of Commerce dropping its quest to put the Citizenship Question on the Census is incorrect or, to state it differently, FAKE! We are absolutely moving forward, as we must, because of the importance of the answer to this question.”

By Thomas Craughwell, EWTN News – Every American has heard of the Battle of the Alamo, the heroic-but-hopeless defense put up by a few dozen Americans against an army from Mexico that numbered in the thousands. Through the sacrifice of their lives for the cause of Texas’ independence, the defenders made the Alamo holy ground in the historical sense. But it was already holy ground as a mission founded by a Franciscan priest to bring the local Indian tribe into the Catholic faith.

By Stephanie Mann, National Catholic Register – The Quebec Act allowed Catholics in Canada, unlike Catholics in England or other British colonies, not only to practice their faith freely, but to serve in government offices without taking an oath that denied their faith. Catholics in England, Scotland and Ireland could not serve in political office because they would have had to deny the Real Presence in the Eucharist (which the government called Transubstantiation), the invocation of saints, and the authority of the pope. Catholics in Canada could simply swear loyalty to King George III.

By Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews – Baptist Pastor Robert Jeffress slammed Democratic Party leaders for worshiping the “imaginary god” of abortion Saturday during the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference… The Democratic Party platform supports unrestricted, unregulated abortions up to birth and taxpayer-funded abortions. Despite the unpopularity of these position among voters, every major Democratic presidential candidate supports them, too… Their devotion to abortion – in defiance of most Americans’ beliefs on the issue – is almost religious in nature…

By Stephen P. White, The Catholic Thing – The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) passed four measures related to the abuse crisis at their general assembly in Baltimore last month. Given the degree to which episcopal malfeasance is the hallmark of the abuse crisis in its current iteration, and given how much expectation there has been for our bishops to “do something” about the crisis, it’s worth looking more closely at the steps that they have taken.

By Regis Nicoll, Crisis Magazine – The current occupant of the Oval Office got there on the promise to “Make America Great Again.” And while Lady Liberty lost some of her luster from the rear guard position of the last Administration, her greatness endures and is the reason America has an immigration problem—scratch, crisis… Unlike other nations that were defined by ethnicity, geography, common heritage, social class, or hierarchal structures, America was a nation of immigrants bound together by a shared commitment to the republican principles of individual liberty, equality, personal responsibility, and laissez faire economics.

By Paul Kengor, National Catholic Register – Every Fourth of July, the United States commemorates its Founders’ dedication to our unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — rights endowed by our Creator… One person who greatly respected what those Founders did was a Polish pope, St. John Paul II… John Paul II expressed that admiration a number of times, including on U.S. soil… “Every human being living on earth is a member of a civil society,” said the Pope. “Each one of you, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, represents a particular state, system and political structure, but what you represent above all are individual human beings … each of them a subject endowed with dignity as a human person.”

By Marcel LeJeune, Catholic Missionary Disciples – I recently ran across an essay which may be one of the most influential pieces of writing in the last 30 years. I heard about it previously, but had not read it until last week. After several readings, I concluded that to modern ears, it sounds like someone is writing satire. But, it isn’t. Rather, the essay was written in 1987 about how to “desensitization of the American public concerning gays and gay rights”. What is amazing is how the strategy were perfectly implemented…

By Mat Staver, Christian Newswire – Justice Clarence Thomas challenged the justices to confront the realities of what the Supreme Court “has wrought” through abortion rulings after it declined Friday to revive Alabama’s ban prohibiting dilation and evacuation (D&E) abortion… Justice Thomas joined his colleagues in deciding not to hear West Alabama Women’s Center v. Thomas Miller, but he said the Court eventually must face the consequences from its past abortion decisions. The justice said that it is “implausible” that the Constitution would protect the dismemberment of a living child.

By Fr. Shenan J. Boquet, Human Life International – It truly is hard to overstate the impact of the pill on our world. As Evangelical Pastor Albert Mohler observes in writing about the death of Rosenkranz, the invention of the pill is truly one of those rare events in history, the consequences of which are so seismic that it constitutes a dividing line – before the pill, and after the pill. Only in the 1960s, for the first time in human history, did humans widely have access to a relatively reliable method of separating sex from procreation. And, as Mohler observes, “once that separation took place, you basically redefined human sexuality.”

By Martina Moyski, Church Militant – Dr. Bob Rice, FUS… responded: “The short answer is, we didn’t invite him.”.. Rice explained that Cupich’s presentation during the conference is based on his membership in the USCCB and its connection to the National Dialogue for Pastoral Ministry. In short, the USCCB invited Cupich — not FUS… Cupich, a well-known proponent of the homosexual agenda, has been criticized by Catholic and secular media for his alternate sex abuse proposal to allow the bishops to investigate themselves with regard to sex abuse… A recent poll on bishops resulted in Cupich making top of the list for “worst bishop in the U.S.” in terms of “trust” and “orthodoxy.”

By Sam Guzman, The Catholic Gentleman – There is much talk about evangelization in the Church today. We see the forces of secularism eroding faith, and many are rightly concerned… The love of many is growing cold, as Jesus predicted that it would (Matt. 24:12). And so the only thing that will draw souls to the Church in these times is the fire of true love. We need saints whose hearts are burning with the eternal flame of love and who radiate it to others.

By Michael New, PH.D., LifeNews – Last week, Gallup released its annual public-opinion poll on abortion policy, and its results contain some good news for abortion opponents. According to the survey, a plurality of Americans now identify as pro-life, with 49 percent of respondents calling themselves “pro-life,” and 46 percent calling themselves “pro-choice.” This is the first Gallup poll since 2013 in which a higher percentage of respondents identified as “pro-life” rather than “pro-choice.”

by Stacy Trasancos, Ph.D., St. Philip Institute –

Archdiocese of San Francisco – Archbishop Cordileone asks all the faithful of the Archdiocese to contact their state Assembly representative to voice their opposition to SB360, proposed legislation that threatens the confidentiality of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. The state Senate has already approved the bill, which would take away from priests and from everyone who works with priests in parishes and Church agencies across the state the full right to confess their sins with the assurance of confidentiality.

By Fr. George W. Rutler, Catholic Exchange – The word “intrigue” can refer to two different phenomena. The first is simple fascination… But there is a second kind of intrigue. And that, says the book of Proverbs, is an abomination to God (6:18). This fascination is not harmless or morally neutral, and it certainly is not the first level of an approach to God. It is really rejection of God and His goodness. This kind of intrigue, condemned by the rabbis and then by the prophets and the Fathers of the Church, is the devising of wicked imaginings, the distortion of the imaginative faculty to plot against God.

By Christopher Altieri, Catholic Herald – Tasked with a preliminary investigation of Bishop Bransfield’s conduct in office, Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore appointed a team of investigators who turned up an array of evidence, including testimony from alleged victims of Bransfield’s sexual appetites — many of them priests and seminarians — as well as his penchant for spending money. Bransfield, The Washington Post reported last month, would also write personal cheques to churchmen, and then have himself reimbursed from diocesan coffers.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – Another one of the seeming paradoxes of true freedom is that it cannot be had unless it is limited. Absolute freedom leads to an anarchy in which no one is really free to act. Consider that we would not be free to drive if there were no traffic laws. The ensuing chaos would make driving extremely difficult—and dangerous! The freedom to drive, to come and go, depends upon us limiting our freedom to drive however we please; we cooperate through obedience to agreed-upon laws of the road.

By Martin M. Barillas, LifeSiteNews – Having concluded that his “conscience dictates” to tell the truth about the alleged cover-up by the highest echelons of the Church of sexual abuse committed by McCarrick against minors and seminarians, Viganò asserted that “the corruption has reached the very top of the Church’s hierarchy.” He called on Pope Francis and others involved in the cover-up of McCarrick’s abuse to resign. Viganò implicated Cardinals Angelo Sodano, Tarcisio Bertone, Donald Wuerl, and Pietro Parolin.

By C C Pecknold, Catholic Herald – St Augustine called it libido dominandi — the lust for domination. And no one can argue that it hasn’t dominated. In truth, pride is a standard which cannot tolerate a common good. It must take away from the good which is common, and become the part which rules over the whole… But there are signs that pride goeth before a fall. Even a tireless proponent of the cause such as Andrew Sullivan has expressed concern that the percentage of young men who consider themselves “allies” has nearly been cut in half since 2016, from 62% to only 35%.

Dr. James Dobson, The Stream – Several weeks ago, I was invited by White House staff to visit our southern border at McAllen, Texas, where federal agents are struggling to deal with a massive influx of poor and destitute human beings. They come in never-ending waves. Please believe me when I tell you that the media and leftist politicians have not been truthful about what is going on there. It is a human tragedy… I promised the exhausted U.S. Custom and Border Patrol agents that I would go home and tell as many people as possible what I had seen “up close and personal.” Today, I am attempting to fulfill that commitment.

By Martin M. Barillas, LifeSiteNews – The Holy See today released “Pastoral Guidelines” to help bishops and priests decide whether registering with the Chinese government is a betrayal of their faith… According to the guidelines, Catholic clergy may comply with the communist government’s demands without betraying Catholic doctrine. The document recognizes the “complex” reality of the relations between the Vatican and China and invites laypeople not to judge their pastors’ decisions, whatever they may be. Calling on the government to refrain from intimidating faithful Catholics, the document calls for “discernment,” “patience” and “humility” in a spirit of “faith and unity.”

By Olivia Enos Published, The Daily Signal – One interchange in the video is especially telling. The BBC reporter asks one of the men whether it was his choice to be in a political reeducation facility. “Yes,” he replies. “A policeman at my village told me to get enrolled in the school and transform my thoughts.”… The reporter also speaks to Chinese officials. Nearly every one alludes to the notion that the roughly 800,000 to 1 million people interned in Xinjiang are affected by religious extremism and in need of reeducation so that their thinking aligns with the Chinese Communist Party.

By Gretchen Filz, Catholic Company – St. Don Bosco is also known for his many prophetic dream… His most famous dream regards future troubles for the Church and is known as the Prophecy of the Two Columns. In his words, here is the dream: “Try to picture yourselves with me on the seashore, or, better still, on an outlying cliff with no other land in sight. The vast expanse of water is covered with a formidable array of ships in battle formation, prows fitted with sharp spear-like beaks capable of breaking through any defense. All are heavily armed with cannons, incendiary bombs, and firearms of all sorts – even books – and are heading toward one stately ship, mightier than them all. As they try to close in, they try to ram it, set it afire, and cripple it as much as possible.

Human Life International – Many people believe that the reasons women get abortions are to save their lives or physical health, or in cases of rape and incest, or to avoid birth defects. This is a fallacy that pro-abortion groups continue to cultivate because it helps them spread abortion in nations with pro-life laws and helps them retain abortion-on-demand once they have achieved it… 0.69% of Abortions Done for the “Hard Cases”… 99.31% of all abortions are therefore performed for social or economic reasons

By Daniel Davis and Katrina Trinko, The Daily Signal – For us to be present more than ever in the public square. To be involved in schools, public schools, and private schools. To be involved in government. To be in the media. To be in the culture, shaping professions. To be in the law and legal societies. To be in the permanent bureaucracy. To be a presence in the state capitals and in Washington, D.C… There’s never been a time where we have needed men and women of faith to step up and to be more involved than now.

By Ismail Royer, The Catholic Thing – In 2014 a group of atheists became offended by the sight of a cross on Maryland public land and demanded that a federal court order its destruction. Two weeks ago, in American Humanist Association v. American Legion, the Supreme Court rejected that demand, and in doing so reminded Americans of the cornerstone of the founding generation’s agreement for living together, codified in 1791 as the First Amendment to the Constitution.

By Fr. Ed Broom, OMV, Catholic Exchange – In this brief article we would like to present the many dangers that militate virulently against the acquisition of this most precious virtue, but also this most demanding virtue of chastity, purity of heart, so that one day we will all be able to contemplate the Face of God, what Saint Thomas Aquinas calls “The Beatific Vision of God”, with our eyes unveiled to contemplate the Face of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Indeed, if we are ignorant of the perils, dangers, pitfalls, and temptations that surround us then it will be much more difficult to reach our ultimate goal.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – Let’s begin by noting that most people in modern times speak of freedom in a detached sense. To them, freedom means the ability to do whatever they please with few if any limits. This libertine, often-licentious notion of freedom more often than not leads to addiction and oppression.For many in the world, then, freedom is always from something, but for a Christian, freedom is always for something.The Christian, biblical understanding of freedom is the capacity, the ability, to obey God. Pairing freedom and obedience seems paradoxical to many in the world!

By Fr. Gerald E. Murray, The Catholic Thing – McCarrick’s current situation is emblematic of the paralysis that has descended on the Church following the revelations of what McCarrick did. He is allowed to live an untroubled life in a Church facility. The decree of laicization has not resulted in his living as an ordinary layperson, responsible for himself… The Holy See has dragged its feet on issuing a declaration on the internal review of documents in its archives related to the McCarrick matter. The review that began last September is still ongoing. How many files and documents can there be?

By Chilton Williamson, Jr., Crisis Magazine – Parish priests in our day and age are naturally concerned to know what music and musical styles are popular, preferred, tolerated, or positively disliked by their parishioners. Church membership and attendance at Mass continue to decline as a result of spiritual luke-warmess, liberalizing influences, secularization, social influence, and now the engulfing scandal of sexual predation involving a shameful number of the clergy, and priests are properly keen to stanch the flow and win back as many of their fallen-away parishioners as they possibly can.

By Rachel Lu, National Catholic Register – St. Peter was a fisherman. Fishing nets and tilapia were his daily reality. Born without distinction in a backwater of the Roman Empire, he presumably would have lived and died in total obscurity, had not Our Lord called him to a higher ministry. The green hills of Galilee might have been his entire world… St. Paul was not a fisherman. He was a man of education and status, who was quite possibly being groomed for an authoritative office or distinguished profession. Some speculate that he may have been a relative of Herod the Great.

By Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews – Dr. Ben Carson, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, a neurosurgeon and pro-life advocate, encouraged pro-lifers as he denounced the radical pro-abortion agenda of the left, according to the Christian Post… “They have perverted that bond [between mother and child] into something that has become evil, something that is horrible, something that is harming me and something that I have a right to kill,” Carson said… “How in the world did we as a society get to that point?” he continued. “We have to be willing to talk about these things. It is our willingness to talk about them and to stand up for people’s rights that has resulted in this becoming the nation that this has become.”

By Jennifer Hartline, The Stream – And suddenly there it was. “…by the forgiveness of their sins.” It jumped off the page: salvation comes by the forgiveness of sins… There is a great need for the Church to return to this simple, core truth, and to sweep away everything else that obscures it… There is no salvation apart from the forgiveness of sin. That means we must first confess that we have sinned. We must first recognize that we have transgressed against God’s holy law, and against God Himself.

By Fr. Bill Peckman, ChurchPop – The first culprit is that we forgot the transcendent… Check that…we actively excoriated it from our identity. This happened in several ways… First, we tamed God. We made Him into our image. We turned him into a kindly and ineffectual therapist whose chief job is to enable our every behavior and pat us on the back for rebelling against Him.

By Kelsey Bolar, The Daily Signal – For months, Democrats denied the illegal immigration crisis at the southern border, with Sen. Chuck Schumer, flanked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, going so far as to accuse President Donald Trump of working to “manufacture a crisis, stoke fear and divert attention from the turmoil in his administration.”… The president, on the other hand, has made the situation on the southern border a top priority, in January declaring it both a “humanitarian and security crisis…”… So how bad is it?

By Michael F. Haverluck, OneNewsNow – After a city council in Muslim Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) district unanimously voted to dump the Pledge of Allegiance from public meetings, a major backlash is spurring them to reconsider… Public outrage was triggered following the 5–0 board vote to amend proceedings on June 17, which only took a few minutes with no further discussion in the meeting room at St. Louis Park, Minnesota, located in the district of Omar – the congresswoman who was granted asylum as a Somali refugee and is notorious for her pro-Islam, anti-Semitic and anti-American rants.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – This Sunday’s Gospel portrays through the life of Jesus some important disciplines for disciples. Let’s look at them and see how to apply them to our lives today… I. Purposefulness – The text says, When the days for Jesus’ being taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers ahead of him… Note that Jesus was resolute. He was heading to Jerusalem to suffer, die, and rise; to undertake the great battle and the great mission entrusted to Him. Everything He did was to be oriented toward this goal.

By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing – It’s a commonplace today that people have lost faith in institutions. And it’s no wonder. Wherever you look – politics, culture, education, even the Church – the institutions that normally provide us with stable identity and points of reference have become sources of disorder and disorientation… Hillary Clinton famously wrote a book: It Takes a Village. She was expressing something not so much wrong as deceptive. It does take a village – and a family, and a church, and a school, and a community – to form children into mature and responsible adults…

By Cathy Burke, Newsmax – In an interview aired Sunday on CBS News’ “Face The Nation,” Graham, in Turkey, said he hammered out the compromise with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif… “I spent about an hour with Speaker Pelosi and here’s the compromise,” he said. “We’ll start turning the aid back on to Central America… “It is in our national security interest to help the northern triangle nations with their economy, with their rule of law problems,” he continued. “But if you don’t turn off the magnets that attract people, which is our asylum laws, if you don’t reform them, they’ll keep coming.”

By Michael W. Chapman , CNSNews – In its survey, Gallup asked, “Just your best guess, what percent of Americans today would you say are gay or lesbian?”… From the respondents’ answers, the average was 23.6%. In other words, American adults think LGBT people make up nearly 24% of the population, which is more than 5 times the real percentage of 4.5%… “Americans’ estimate of the proportion of gay people in the U.S. is more than five times Gallup’s more encompassing 2017 estimate that 4.5% of Americans are LGBT, based on respondents’ self-identification as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender,” reported the survey firm.

By Cody Leach, CNSNews – At the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, CNSNews.com asked Rep. Gohmert, “Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution says the president ‘shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.’ Does the president have a constitutional duty to enforce the immigration laws?”… The congressman said, “Of course he does, absolutely he does. And he’s doing everything he can to try to do that. We just need a little help from the Democrats to make that happen as fully as it should. He’s doing everything he can.”

By Suellen Brewster, The Catholic Stand – In this Gospel passage Jesus speaks to us of the Father’s omniscience, His “all knowing” quality. So, if God knows everything, including our needs and what we would pray for, why do we need to ask? As usual, the answer is that we ask because the asking itself is a gift and a grace God wants us to have. In the asking I unite my heart and soul to the One who can supply. But very often, perhaps more often than not, the asking clarifies what I am yearning for, revealing that it is not the right thing.

By Shane Schaetzel, Blogger – The following is a checklist for victims of clerical sex abuse. If you, or anyone you know, has become a victim of clerical sex abuse, either as a minor or adult, you need to do the following as quickly as possible… #1–CALL THE POLICE! Seriously, this should always be the FIRST thing you do without exception. Even if you’re not sure if an actual crime has been committed. Chances are, you’re probably not a lawyer or cop. So call the police and let them figure out if any laws have been broken. That’s their job! Let them do it.

By David Torkington, The Catholic Stand – “Whenever riches have increased, the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion.”… These new Christians became more and more consumed with the lust for money, power and ambition and began to worship the God who would not deter them or put too many demands on them. In this climate, it would be far more acceptable to acknowledge that the founder of their religion was no more than a man, albeit a very great man, but not God.

By Steven D. Greydanus, National Catholic Register – To bury the dead is one of the seven corporal works of mercy, and to bury one’s parents is also an act of filial piety, of the honor or reverence that we owe to our parents under the fourth commandment… To care for our aging parents, and to bury them at death, are among the most necessary duties that we owe to our parents — and, if anything, this duty was even more deeply felt in Jesus’ day than in ours… Jesus took very seriously the obligation to provide for one’s aging parents. This is what he blasted the Pharisees for not doing.

By Max Bindernagel, Crisis Magazine – For news outlets hungry for a story, the narrative wrote itself: a teacher at Indianapolis’ Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School had entered into a same-sex “marriage,” the Archdiocese demanded said teacher’s termination, and the school’s refusal in that matter precipitated the Archdiocese’s decree that it could no longer recognize Brebeuf as Catholic.

By Claire Chretien, LifeSiteNews – “Once again the Supreme Court has punted on abortion, this time refusing to take up Alabama’s humane law protecting unborn children from gruesome dismemberment abortions in which a child is torn apart, piece by piece,” the Susan B. Anthony List said in a statement… Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion in which he agreed the court shouldn’t take up the case, However, he called it a “stark reminder that our abortion jurisprudence has spiraled out of control.”

By Kathy Schiffer, National Catholic Register – Every year, 19 days after Pentecost, the Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But where did that tradition originate?… Devotion to the wounded heart of Jesus has its origins in the eleventh century, when pious Christians meditated on the Five Wounds of Christ. There grew up among the faithful prayers to the Sacred Heart, prayers to the Shoulder Wound of Christ—private devotions which helped Christians to focus on the passion and death of Christ, and thus to grow in love for our Savior who had suffered and died for us.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – There are many causes for our cultural meltdown, but given our directive to be Christ’s light to the world, we must admit that to some degree we are answerable for the current state of affairs. The cauldron in Europe resulted in two World Wars largely fought in “Christian” Europe. Further, the widespread abandonment of the Faith in Europe does not bode well for anyone. We in the West often point to cite disarray and corruption in places like Africa, but Europe has been the site of bloodbaths for thousands of years, the last two thousand of which happened in a supposedly Christian Europe.

By Diane Montagna, LifeSiteNews – LifeSiteNews has obtained the list of participants in a private and unannounced Pre-Amazonian Synod “study-meeting,” held at a gated hilltop convent on the outskirts of Rome this week… A photograph of the full list of 30 participants, taken by this correspondent (see below), confirms that the three-day meeting included key German prelates and Vatican officials, some of whom support a relaxing in priestly celibacy in the Latin Church, and the idea of women priests.

By Rachel Bovard, The Stream – This year, and especially in the past few months, states have become increasingly willing to test the courts by passing new abortion laws. Arkansas on March 15 banned abortion after 18 weeks. The same month, Utah, too, banned abortion after 18 weeks, and Mississippi banned abortion after it is possible to detect a fetal heartbeat… Ohio passed a similar “fetal heartbeat bill” in April. On May 7, Georgia, did too. Eight days later, Alabama passed a near-total ban on abortions, the most restrictive law since Roe v. Wade. On May 24, Missouri banned abortion after eight weeks; six days later, Louisiana signed its own heartbeat bill into law.

By Michael Swartz, Patriot Post – With the amount of information the U.S. Census gathers every decade, it seems logical that one of the questions asked would be simply, “Are you a citizen of the United States?” Yet the very idea of asking this simple “yes” or “no” question outraged the Left — which is in a headlong rush to offer free stuff to anyone who arrives. And leftists found a judge and a Supreme Court willing to stop the Trump administration from adding this longstanding question back into the 2020 census… As speculated here earlier this month, the ever-capricious Chief Justice John Roberts was the one handed Democrats a victory with another of his weirdly contorted decisions.

By Sarah Terzo,  Live Action News – Judging by woman’s testimonies, few women taking the abortion pill are told that they might see their babies, much less that those babies would be quite well-formed. But telling women too much information about fetal development could lead to them not choosing abortion, therefore causing the abortion facility to lose money. Instead, women will continue to be surprised and possibly traumatized by learning too late how developed their babies were.

By Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register – Cardinal Walter Brandmüller has firmly criticized the working document of the upcoming Amazonian Synod, saying “decisive points” are “heretical” and that it constitutes an “attack on the foundations of the faith.”… In a June 27 commentary the president emeritus of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences also said the document “burdens” the Synod of Bishops with a “grave breach” of the deposit of faith which he believes will either result in the Church’s “self-destruction,” or reduce her to a “secular NGO with an ecological-social-psychological mandate.”

By Msgr. Charles Pope – There have been several times in my life when my soul was asleep morally, and it was music that called me back. Although I joined the church choir when I was young in order to meet girls, it was through the music that the Lord showed me a deeper desire in my heart for goodness, beauty, and truth—indeed, my desire for God Himself. The music awoke my sleeping soul to God… More recently, and in a particular way, music awakens my soul to the deeper meaning of Sacred Scripture.

By Bob Kellogg, Billy Davis, OneNewsNow – South Carolina has required students to learn about the U.S. Constitution and other important documents since 1924, but the University of South Carolina has knowingly ignored the requirement and is criticizing an updated law introduced by state Sen. Lawrence Grooms… Education watchdog Campus Reform reports a USC spokesman admitted to state legislators the university has never complied with the law and complained in particular about the required exam required for the course.

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture – The recent US Supreme Court decision permitting a cross to remain on public land in Bladensburg, MD is a peculiar one, to say the least. It demonstrates the kind of convoluted reasoning that must characterize justices who have reservations about public expressions of religion but do not wish to obliterate history. We can, I believe, take this reasoning as the best our secular officials can do to avoid actively erasing all remembrance of God.

By Dennis Prager, The Stream – In order to make arguments for nationalism, we have to define it… The first definition in Merriam-Webster is “loyalty and devotion to a nation.” But in a second paragraph, it adds, “especially: a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups.”… Let’s be clear: If the second paragraph is the only definition of nationalism, nationalism is always a bad thing…

By David Carlin, The Catholic Thing – Not all atheists are the same, and not all atheists are atheistic for the same reason.  But given the rise in unbelief among us, it’s useful to examine some of those reasons. So here is a list – in no particular order and doubtless incomplete – of some currently notable motives for atheism. Note, too, that an individual may simultaneously have more than one of these motives.

By Sandro Magister, L’Espresso – Since it was made public on June 17, the base document – or “Instrumentum laboris” – of the synod for the Amazon has received many critical reactions… But as of today there is more. Accusing the document of nothing less than heresy and apostasy is a cardinal, the German Walter Brandmüller, 90, an illustrious Church historian, president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences from 1998 to 2009, and coauthor, in 2016, of the famous “dubia” on the correct interpretation and application of “Amoris Laetitia” to which Pope Francis has always refused to respond.

By Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., The Stream – Most everyone in America was and is in favor of marriage equality. Most everyone was and is in favor of marriage equality because most everyone wants the law to treat all marriages equally… The debate in the United States in the decade and a half before Obergefell v. Hodges wasn’t about equality. It was about marriage. We disagreed about what marriage is… Before you can get to considerations of equal protection of the law, you have to know what it is the law is trying to protect equally… Every law makes distinctions. Equality before the law protects citizens from arbitrary distinctions, from laws that treat them differently for no good reason.

By Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews – Ohio lawmakers are nearing final passage of a budget that defunds the nation’s largest abortion provider and increases support for pregnant and parenting moms in the state… Fox News reports the Ohio Senate passed the two-year, $69 billion budget bill last week with a $1.5 million cut in funding to Planned Parenthood annually. The budget also includes $5 million for pregnancy resource centers – five times what the nonprofits have received in the past, according to the report.

Fr. Mike Schmitz, Ascension Presents – Fr. Mike explains why hope is the best remedy for suicidal thoughts. If you know someone struggling with such thoughts, don’t hesitate to reach out to them with reasons to have hope. If someone you know or love has committed suicide, pray for them and don’t lose hope for their soul. If you struggle with suicidal thoughts, don’t be ashamed to seek help. Fr. Mike shares these words of encouragement and more in this video. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255. 

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – Father George William Rutler is at his best, which is very, very good, as he analyzes the US bishops’ discussion of capital punishment for Crisis. He focuses attention on the decision by Pope Francis to change the Catechism, to say that the death penalty is now “inadmissible.” (One hapless bishop described that word a bit of “eloquent ambiguity,” and readers will enjoy Father Rutler’s reaction to that comment. On the new wording itself, Father Rutler writes…

By Leonora Butau, Ph.D., Crisis Magazine – Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus; a feast that helps us to reflect more deeply on the magnitude of Christ’s love for souls. It is a feast that comes with an invitation to experience the “abundance of healing waters, that is, heavenly gifts of divine love, issuing from the Sacred Heart of our Redeemer,” as Pope Pius XII so wonderfully expressed in the encyclical, Haurietis Aquas, written in 1956, on occasion of the centenary anniversary of its institution.

By Caleb Parke, Fox News – A North Carolina woman, who had just begun the process of a chemical abortion, made a last-minute, split-second decision that saved the life of her babies… At six weeks pregnant, she walked into A Preferred Women’s Health Center, a Charlotte abortion facility, to end the pregnancy… “Oh, twins,” a technician performing an ultrasound told “Alexis.”… The words were enough. Alexis didn’t need to see the ultrasound. She’d always dreamt of having twins, but she had already begun the process terminating her pregnancy, having swallowed the first “abortion pill” of RU-486 and handed the second to take within 48 hours.

By Maike Hickson, LifeSiteNews – Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, one of the two remaining dubia cardinals, issued today a strong critique of the Vatican’s working document (Instrumentum Laboris) for the upcoming Pan-Amazon Synod, calling it “heretical” and an “apostasy” from Divine Revelation. He called upon Church leaders to “reject” it with “all decisiveness.”… “It is to be stated now with insistence that the Instrumentum Laboris contradicts the binding teaching of the Church in decisive points and thus has to be qualified as heretical,” the 90-year-old German prelate wrote in a document.. that was published simultaneously by LifeSiteNews and Austrian news website Kath.net.

By John Horvat II, Return to Order – The left has always tried to carve out a space in Christianity. Its social justice warriors and liberation theology rabble-rousers never seem to get it right… More often than not, religious liberals dress up Christian teachings in Marxist clothes, which looks fake. They pay the consequences with their dwindling congregations. It is not a winning proposition… This is why the new leftist religious upswing is so surprising. However, its activists are not found on any point in the Christian spectrum; they occupy the dark regions of the occult.

By Tiana Lowe, Washington Examiner – In a last-minute addition to the annual Aspen Ideas Festival hosted by the Aspen Institute, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to the stage to defend his company’s decision to leave a controversial altered video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the site. He also defended his calls for the government to regulate social media… He also revealed, possibly for the first time, that during Ireland’s recent referendum on abortion he consulted with Ireland’s government (which supported legalizing abortion) about whether Facebook should block pro-life ads originating outside the tiny island nation.

By Michael F. Haverluck, OneNewsNow – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) hypocritically blamed President Donald Trump over conditions in the border crisis, claiming Democrats would never “put children in cages” – even though former President Barack Obama did exactly that in 2014, when it was his policies that separated illegal immigrant youth from their parents … and he built the quarters to do so.

By Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews – Asked during Wednesday night’s debate to name the “greatest geopolitical threat to the United States right now,” ten Democrats running for the presidency offered a range of replies including China, Russia, nuclear war, climate change – and President Trump… The candidate who named Trump as the biggest threat, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, won the most enthusiastic audience reaction, although climate change and Russia were also applause lines.

By Stephen Wynne, Church Militant – Choosing to protect the institution instead of the innocent, these “deadbeat dads” have open(ed) the door to unprecedented spiritual and sexual abuse… These same clerics have allowed evil to infiltrate the Church and saturate society… They bow to abortion activists, look past Islamist radicals, “dialogue” with Communist persecutors and open diocesan doors to LGBT zealots. Meanwhile, they skewer men who stand strong against the spirit of the age.

By Joan Frawley Desmond, EWTN News – Shortly after national headlines confirmed that Indianapolis Archbishop Charles Thompson had stripped Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School of its right to call itself “Catholic,” canonists began weighing in on the dispute, which came to a head with the release of a formal archdiocesan decree June 20… Dominican Father Joseph Fox, the vicar for canonical services in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, told the Register that “canon law was pretty clear” about the handling of such cases, and the archbishop’s decision reflected that.

By Constance T. Hull, Catholic Exchange – The great battle for each one of us in living a life of faith is to learn to love God above all things, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. In the life of the Church, as we all seek to grow in greater communion with the Most Holy Trinity and with one another, we have to learn how to detach our own interests from our relationships with one another. This is a battle we all wage in the spiritual life.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – Many Catholics are unaware that our traditional church buildings are based on designs given by God Himself. It goes all the way back to Mount Sinai, when God set forth the design for the sanctuary in the desert and for the tent of meeting. Many of the fundamental aspects of our layouts still follow that plan (and the stone version of it that became the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem). Traditional church buildings also have numerous references to the Book of Revelation and the Book of Hebrews, both of which describe the heavenly liturgy and Heaven itself.

By John Zmirak, The Stream – The latest of Francis’ accomplishments? The Synod on the Amazon. Historians will spill millions of words on this subject, but it boils down simply to this. Rich, corrupt German bishops with empty churches want to tell the rest of the Church how to reform itself… Since no one’s inspired by their epic, Teutonic failure, these Germans have found a strategy. Locate a bunch of quaint primitives who live “in harmony” with nature. Then hold up their hunter-gatherer lifestyle as a model of Christian life. And use the pretext of honoring their pagan culture as a stalking horse for dismantling Catholic doctrines and practices that go back to the Apostles….

By Peter Kwasniewski, LifeSiteNews – The vast majority of U.S. bishops voted on June 13, 2019 to rewrite the U.S. Catholic Catechism for Adults to bring it into line with the novelty introduced by Francis into the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Pope Francis espouses the error that capital punishment is illegitimate in principle, a claim that can be true only if it is intrinsically immoral — which Francis has indicated he believes when he called it “per se contrary to the Gospel” (October 11, 2017) and “immoral” (May 10, 2019)… In this way, the U.S. bishops showed themselves a collective chameleon turning white from clinging so closely to the papal habit, rather than standing on their own feet as successors of the apostles, handing down the consistent teaching of the Church over the past two millennia.

By Michael Pakaluk, The Catholic Thing – The American founding was profoundly liberal in this second sense.  Federalism and the separation of powers work to disperse authority.  Republicanism makes persuasion and compromise necessary.  The recognition of religious freedom opens up entire spheres of human life where human government has no competence.  An agrarian society, so dependent on variations in land and climate, has a naturally diverse economy.

By Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews – A Georgia sheriff’s office released a heart-wrenching video Tuesday showing the rescue of a newborn baby girl who was abandoned in a plastic bag along the side of the road… Baby India is doing well after her June 6 rescue in Forsyth County, Georgia, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The county sheriff’s office said they released the video with the hope that someone will come forward with details about her… The video is body camera footage from one of the local sheriff deputies during the rescue…

By Regis Nicoll, Crisis Magazine – One year after scientists flipped the switch on Large Hadron Collider (LHC), physicist Lawrence Krauss fretted, “I worry whether we’ve come to the limits of empirical science.” His worry was not unfounded—for in the last eleven years at the cost of over $13B, the sole accomplishment of the LHC has been the confirmation of the Higgs boson, the elusive particle thought to give rise to the property of mass in the universe.

By Fr. Gerald E. Murray, The Catholic Thing – It has now been one year since the Archdiocese of New York announced that it had received a credible accusation that the retired Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, had, as a priest, sexually abused a high school seminarian in the basement of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.. McCarrick was found guilty of multiple grave crimes and was expelled from the priesthood by Pope Francis. Was this sufficient punishment?… It is high time for the hierarchy of the Church to reveal to the faithful the whole story of McCarrick and of other bishops who were wolves in shepherds’ clothing, inflicting harm on the sheep, either as sexual molesters or as their enablers and protectors.

By Diane Montagna, LifeSiteNews – Julio Loredo, president of the Italian branch of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) and author of “Liberation Theology, a life jacket for the poor made of lead” [Teologia della liberazione. Un salvagente di piombo per i poveri (Cantagalli, 2014)], said the “untold” backstory of the Amazon Synod is that it’s been decades in the making, and is designed to “change the whole Church” according to “so-called indigenist and ecological theology.”… Loredo noted the upcoming Synod “is being prepared and staffed by a well-organized network of ‘indigenist’ associations and movements,” such as REPAM (Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network)… “All its mentors come from the folds of the Liberation Theology movement,” he said.

By William Mahoney, Ph.D., Church Militant – A new bombshell report from The Lepanto Institute links Pope Francis’ promotion of sustainable development goals to communism… Pope Francis’ commitment to promoting SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) was first mentioned in a document by the United Nations Population Fund entitled “Religion and Development Post 2015.”… Appreciation of these issues is growing within the UN, as evidenced for example in the May 2014 meeting between the UN leadership and representatives of the Vatican and His Holiness the Pope on the SDG agenda… The Lepanto Institute’s report states that, in his 2015 encyclical letter Laudato Si, Pope Francis made 23 direct references to SDGs.

By Star Parker, Daily Signal – Omar is blinded by hate for the nation to which she had the privilege of immigrating. She is blinded by the distortions of the statist ideology that, despite years of experience and tens of trillions in government expenditures to the contrary, she chooses to believe will improve impoverished lives… Two courageous Christian pastors presented themselves before the House Budget Committee as living examples that the faith and freedom that made America great is still the formula that works—even in the most difficult and challenging circumstances… We’re now entering election season. Democrats are betting they can still drown out the truth and continue to sell the same failed big-government lies to blacks.

By Maura Roan McKeegan, Catholic Exchange – Last month, our family gathered at the dinner table with an honored guest: our dear priest friend, Fr. Al, who is 94 years old. As usual, I hung on his every word… “Every morning, as soon as I wake up, I thank the Lord…” Fr. Al said, and then paused briefly. I waited for him to finish the sentence with something like, for the chance to live another day… But that wasn’t what he said. Instead, he ended the sentence with three words I didn’t expect: “…for the sacraments.”

By Chad Groening, Billy Davis, OneNewsNow – A pro-family activist predicts the Obergefell decision that imposed homosexual marriage on the United States will eventually receive the same legal and moral scrutiny as Roe v. Wade… June 26 marks the fourth anniversary of the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, a 5-4 ruling that found same-sex couples are guaranteed the legal right to marry by the 14th Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause in the U.S. Constitution… The ruling was predictably hailed as a historic moment for homosexuals and lesbians, who had successfully sued in numerous courts to roll back state-level efforts to defend normal, man-woman marriage.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – Gallup found 60% of Americans take a pro-life position on abortion wanting all (21%) or almost all 39% abortions made illegal. That 60% figure is the highest percentage of Americans espousing a pro-life position since 2009 and a dramatic rise in pro-life attitudes since the 53% figure Gallup pound in its polling last year… The poll found just 38% of Americans take a pro-abortion position wanting all (25%) or almost all (13%) abortions legal. That is down from the 43% pro-abortion figure Gallup found last year.

By Jason Jones, The Stream – My own journey started when I was just 17. One Saturday morning my girlfriend sat down on the edge of my bed. She woke me with news of her pregnancy. My shoulder pads and football helmet sat on the floor. Posters of my heroes Walter Payton and Mike Singletary hung on the wall. In a boys’ room, I learned I was embarking on a man’s journey… We agreed on what to do. I would join the Army, so I could support us. She would take prenatal vitamins and hide her pregnancy with baggy clothing until I was through with basic training. We would tell our parents when I returned… And that’s exactly what we did…

By George Neumayer, American Spectator – “Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is confirming that, as papal nuncio, he received complaints of homosexual predation and harassment by Msgr. Walter Rossi, rector of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.,” reports Christine Niles of Church Militant… Speaking to the Italian journalist Marco Tosatti recently, Viganò said, ”Monsignor Rossi is, without a doubt, a member of the ‘gay mafia.’ You can read about him online on The American Spectator website.”

By Msgr. Charles Pope – One of the questionable, and unfortunately common, forms of moral reasoning today is the rather narcissistic notion that God wants each of us to be happy. Sometimes it is put in the form of a rhetorical question: God wants me to be happy, doesn’t He?… And this sort of reasoning (if you want to call it that) is used to justify just about anything. Thus, in pondering divorce, a spouse might point to his or her misery and conclude that God would approve of the split because God wants me to be happy, doesn’t He? Many seek to justify so-called same-sex marriage, and other illicit sexual notions in the same way.

The Patriot Post, Media Editors – There’s a book you can read to your children that will make your job as a parent a lot easier… This book will teach them lessons in character, how to distinguish right from wrong; about gratitude, respect and perseverance. And that’s in the opening chapters!… Parents have been reading this book to their children for a very long time. It’s one reason it’s a perpetual best-seller… This book, of course, is the Bible, and you don’t have to be religious to read it. And your kids don’t have to be religious to enjoy it and get a whole lot out of it.

By John Zmirak, a Senior Editor, The Stream – I suspect that British elites realized that they’d overplayed their hand. It was just a little too early to impose this sort of thing. Enough people still live who flew RAF planes in the Blitz to defeat a regime built openly on eugenics and euthanasia… But insofar as Britain or any other country accepts socialism, it will sooner or later take control over birth and death. Any other policy is fiscally unsound. The heirs of Margaret Sanger will revive her idea of restricting reproduction by the “unfit.”… If the State takes responsibility for all, it also will claim control.

By Lisa Bourne, LifeSiteNews – A lay Catholic website is calling for a boycott of an annual collection to be held this weekend in most U.S. parishes benefitting the pope’s designated charities… Complicit Clergy is urging the boycott of the Peter’s Pence collection, which is set for June 29-30 weekend Masses, stemming from Pope Francis’ controversial use earlier this year of half a million dollars from the collection to benefit Central American migrants in Mexico who are trying to enter the U.S. illegally… “The Vatican wires half a million dollars from Peter’s Pence to aid the illegal immigrant caravan marching over the southern border of the United States,” the boycott call states.

By Fr. George W. Rutler, Crisis Magazine – There have even been bishops so impatient with the subtleties that make theology logical, that they have turned two thousand years of Christianity upside down by announcing that the death penalty is absolutely immoral. This epistemological novocaine contradicts an advisory of Cardinal Ratzinger in 1992: “If a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment … he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to prevent himself to receive Holy Communion.”

By Jonathan B. Coe, Crisis Magazine – As these prophecies unfold and the days grow darker and darker, the number of faithful will reduce and their faith will be sorely tested. However, the Mother of God promises that just when it seems all is lost and paralyzed, she will intervene and initiate “the happy beginning of the complete restoration. This will mark the arrival of my hour, when I, in a marvelous way, will dethrone the proud and cursed Satan, trampling him under my feet and fettering him in the infernal abyss.”

By Eduardo J. Echeverria, The Catholic Thing – The just-released Instrumentum Laboris for the upcoming Synod, “Amazonia, New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology,” implicitly accepts the presupposition that God willed the diversity of religions – religious pluralism. And that presupposition lies behind its faulty concept of inculturation. Acceptance of religious pluralism predisposes the authors of this document to understand inculturation as primarily the call to adapt or accommodate the totality of the Catholic faith to the Amazonian cultures; ecclesiastically; liturgically; and doctrinally…

By Father Brian Mullady, OP, EWTN News – So today, members of the CDF maintain that the change wrought in the Catechism concerning capital punishment is a genuine development of doctrine caused by a better grasp of the dignity of the human person in modern society. If the Pope and the CDF wish to pursue the abolition of the death penalty on circumstantial grounds, that is fine. However, one may legitimately disagree with them as to the prudential nature of this pursuit. Cardinal Ratzinger expressed this fact when he was head of the CDF in a letter to the U.S. bishops’ conference…

By Evie Fordham, LifeNews – Pres. Trump signed an executive order he called “the opposite of Obamacare” that directs the DHHS to create rules increasing transparency in health care pricing Monday… “We will empower patients with the information they need to search for the lowest cost and highest quality care,” Trump said at the White House Monday afternoon, adding the executive order’s goal is to “put American patients first.”.. “People have no idea how big it is. Some people say bigger than health care itself. … For too long it’s been virtually impossible for Americans to know the real price and quality of health care services and the services they receive,” Trump continued.

By Jody Brown, OneNewsNow – An undercover video just released as part of a report on one of the largest technology companies in the world indicates the corporate Goliath is bent on never letting somebody like Donald Trump come to power again… “We all got screwed over in 2016, again it wasn’t just us, it was, the people got screwed over, the news media got screwed over, like, everybody got screwed over so we’re rapidly been like, what happened there and how do we prevent it from happening again.”

By Fr. Alexander Lucie-Smith, Catholic Herald – Contemporary evangelisation calls us to enter into a personal relationship with God. What better aid than the image of Our Lord’s wounded Heart?.. God knows, better than anyone, what people are like, and the revelation of God is expressed in a way designed to help our frail human minds receive it… Long before we were people of the book, we were people of the image. Before I could read, my favourite book was the Children’s Bible, and how I loved those pictures – Jonah and the Whale, Adam and Eve walking about in what looked like a greenhouse, and a green-eyed Jesus with flowing blonde locks teaching a group of attentive disciples.

By Charlie Butts, Billy Davis, OneNewsNow – Female teen athletes who were forced to be “tolerant” of stronger, faster males competing against them in track meets are fighting back… Alliance Defending Freedom is representing teen athlete Selina Soule (pictured at above) and two other girls in a legal quest to wrestle control of their sport from transgender girls — biological boys — who are breaking state records while depriving females from all-female competitions and scholarship opportunities.

By Fr. John Portavella, Catholic Exchange – As St. Josemaría suggested, our contact with the invisible Audience could be very well seasoned if we place a particular emphasis on each day of the week… On Mondays, it would be a good idea to remember the blessed souls in Purgatory. They certainly belong to the silent realm beyond the barrier that separates us from the other side. They are blessed, however, for the grace of God is with them. These souls are becoming more and more inflamed with the love of God and in union with Him….

By Chris Dyer for DailyMail.com and Reuters – Washington’s deployment of land-based missile systems near Russia’s borders could lead to a standoff comparable to the Cuban missile crisis, an official warned… Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov threatened an escalation ‘to the hilt’ if the weapons systems remain in place… The Kremlin has been fiercely critical of US plans to deploy missile systems in eastern Europe, and of Washington’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) arms control treaty… Ryabkov said: ‘If it really comes to deploying such systems on land, the situation will not just become complicated, it will escalate up to the hilt.’.. US activity in Eastern Europe has increased in recent months, with the threat of military bases springing up in the region.

By Fr. Shenan J. Boquet, Human Life International – In 2017, the Gates Foundation pledged $375 million for “family planning,” with the goal of providing contraception to 120 million women around the world, particularly in developing countries. This was merely the latest of the many hundreds of millions that the Gates Foundation has previously spent on promoting contraception. Melinda defends her foundation’s emphasis on contraception by claiming that there are hundreds of millions of women with an “unmet need” for contraception.

By Fr. Shenan Boquet, Human Life International – Organizers of “Gay Pride” events have successfully conditioned the media and the public to talk about these parades as if they were simply celebrations of “equality.” However, even some people who are fully on board with the LGBT agenda have pointed out the obvious: these parades are often less about celebrating equality than they are about celebrating promiscuous sex — the more debauched the better.

By William Mahoney, Ph.D., Church Militant – James Grein, 61, who told his story of now-laicized Theodore McCarrick’s abuse to The New York Times in July, has launched a GoFundMe campaign to encourage and assist other victims to come forward with their stories of clergy sexual abuse… Grein knows the deep emotional pain, fear and intimidation victims suffer. He knows that many abused victims do not think anybody will care, take action or help them in any way… “Francis gave us whistleblower protection — use this to help them,” he said… Church Militant sat down with Grein to discuss McCarrick, the recent report of the U.S. bishops sending $750k to the LGBT-promoting Ignatian Network and the GoFundMe campaign.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – Sitting in the Basilica earlier this month and seeing ten new priests ordained was a great joy. I heard again those words that speak to the mystery of the call: Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet (Jer 1:4). Yes, God’s call is a great mystery to me. Before I was born, He knew I would become a priest, but I didn’t know until long after my birth… God has been good to me. For 30 years now I have prayed every day, celebrated the liturgy every day, read and studied God’s Word every day, and confessed every week. Through it all I’m a changed man.

Bishop Robert Barron, Word on Fire, June 6, 2013 – Another part of a video series from Wordonfire.org. Bishop Barron will be commenting on subjects from modern day culture. 

By Church Militant, Church Militant – last month, Church Militant sent a media inquiry directly to Cardinal Cupich and multiple staffers asking for a response to what we knew. We received no response… Law enforcement officials now tell Church Militant that what certainly appears to be a cover-up by Cupich and the archdiocese to protect America’s most prominent homosexualist cardinal is only the tip of the iceberg… In addition to abuse of minors, failure to internally investigate and covering up Bernardin’s deeds, officials are now looking into charges directly related to Cupich’s tenure in Chicago involving financial misappropriation and corruption.

By Fr. Paul Sheller, OSB, The Catholic Gentleman – St. Benedict wrote, “Speaking and teaching are the master’s task; the disciple is to be silent and listen” (RB 6:8). Silence is the environment that allows you to listen to God’s voice and the voices of those around you properly. Many people are uncomfortable with silence or they find it awkward… St. Benedict echoed the wisdom found in the Book of Proverbs which says, “In a flood of words you will not avoid sin,” (RB 6:11). By avoiding unnecessary noise in your life, you learn to cultivate inner silence, which is the ideal setting for prayer.

By Marco Tosatti, OnePeterFive – Editor’s note: the following article from Marco Tosatti originally appeared today in Italian at La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, and has been translated for us by Giuseppe Pellegrino. It summarizes the story released earlier this week by Church Militant about documents obtained from secret Chicago diocesan archives pertaining to the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s alleged sexual abuse — some of it reportedly Satanic in nature — and the fact that Cardinal Blase Cupich failed to turn  this documentation over to law enforcement.

By Sarah Quale, Church Militant – Drag queen story hours are popping up in libraries across the country…. To destroy the human made in the image of God — to destroy inherent value, dignity and thus, personhood — the Enemy must systematically dismantle each of God’s design elements — life, marriage, family, sexuality and gender (Genesis 1:26–28). What we are witnessing everywhere in our culture today is a direct assault on these elements.

By Obianuju Ekeocha, First Things – On Friday, the United Kingdom’s Court of Protection ordered a mentally disabled pregnant woman to abort her unborn child… The case was brought to court by a National Health Service trust that oversees the disabled woman’s care. The trust requested the Court of Protection—which makes decisions on the property, financial affairs, and personal welfare of people who lack mental capacity to make decisions for themselves—to allow their doctors to abort the baby. The trust doctors made this request even though the woman is 22 weeks pregnant.

By Fr. Paul D. Scalia, The Catholic Thing – “Give them some food yourselves.” At first hearing, these words of our Lord might seem curious, even off-putting, as if Jesus were trying to get out of work. The Apostles had brought Him a reasonable concern: they are in a deserted place, with little food to be found; the crowds need to be dismissed to go look for provisions. But instead of responding generously, as He had done so many times, He seems to foist the responsibility on the Apostles: “Give them some food yourselves.” In effect, “Do it yourself.”

By Rob Bluey and Virginia Allen, Daily Signal – On today’s episode of The Daily Signal Podcast, we feature an interview with Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote. She explains how her organization took on the IRS and won an important victory in court.“There is power in speaking out,” says Engelbrecht. “There’s power in telling the truth boldly … even if it means that you have to say some uncomfortable things to agencies, institutes, or individuals that wield extreme power. And that was the case with the IRS.”

By Michael Brown, The Stream – In the latest and most egregious example of attempted government overreach, California legislators have proposed a bill that would dictate what pastors preach from the pulpit. Specifically, “Assembly Concurrent Resolution 99 calls on ‘counselors, pastors, religious workers, educators’ and institutions with ‘great moral influence’ to stop perpetuating the idea that something is wrong with LGBT identities or sexual behavior.

By Lauretta Brown, National Catholic Register – The U.S. Supreme Court granted a victory Monday for Aaron and Melissa Klein, bakers who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple due to their religious beliefs… The Supreme Court ordered the Oregon Court of Appeals to revisit its prior ruling against the couple in light of the high court’s ruling in favor of Christian baker Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop, who had similarly declined to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

By Matt Walsh, LifeNews – So this is why you can’t, for instance, advocate for slavery while also being a proponent of civil rights. Either you’re lying about your civil rights stance, or else you have an understanding of ‘civil rights’ which does not include a right to be free from enslavement. If that’s the case, then you are not a believer in civil rights at all, no matter how loudly you insist otherwise… For very similar reasons, you simply cannot be Christian and pro-abortion.

By Michael F. Haverluck, OneNewsNow – Nations belonging to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and other governments adhering to Shariah law across the world are ramping up their new campaign with the United Nations to prohibit all speech that Muslims consider offensive… “Islamist nations … long have sought a determination from the United Nations that any criticism of Islam or Muslims is ‘Islamophobia’ and banned globally,’” WND reported, noting that with 57 members, the OIC represents the largest voting bloc in the U.N…

By Patrick Coffin, Crisis Magazine – Halfway through season two of the Netflix hit series Stranger Things, I made the decision to stop watching. Owing to monstrous laziness, I kept putting off writing down the reasons why I stopped. This month, I dumped Netflix altogether… I had heard about this new binge-watch phenom from ads and friends. Sure enough, I was hooked from the pilot episode…

By Cardinal Robert Sarah, Catholic World Report – “As a bishop,” said Cardinal Robert Sarah at a May 25th conference in Paris, “it is my duty to warn the West: behold the flames of barbarism threaten you!”… I have come to present my latest book: The Day is Far Spent. In this book, I analyze the profound crisis of the West, a crisis of faith, a crisis of the Church, of the priesthood, of identity, a crisis of the meaning of man and human life. I discuss this spiritual collapse and all its consequences.

Msgr. Charles Pope – On the Feast of Corpus Christi, we do well to meditate on the desire of the Lord to feed His people and the shocking indifference many have to this fact. This indifference is not just on the part of those who do not come to Mass; it is also found among those in the pews, many of whom don’t seem to care that so many people no longer attend. We should recognize the passionate concern the Lord has to feed all His people—yes even your wayward spouse or child.

LifeSiteNews – The US Bishops are wrestling with the mass exodus of a half of a generation from the U.S. Church, one of their Committee heads has said, but while the Bishops appear to be concerned and eager to address the issue, the question remains as to whether they will take an honest and comprehensive look at why this is happening… An effort to engage young people on social media by the US Bishops at their spring General Assembly last week suggests that the US Church persists in unwillingness to admit that many young people, and others, desire what’s been lacking for countless Catholics for decades – solid teaching of the faith and a return to Traditional, if not at least reverent liturgy.

By Ryan Bomberger, LifeNews – Reparations. Like every other issue for the Socialist—whoops—Democrat Party, it’s one steeped in massive pandering, misinformation, class warfare, racism, and lunacy… I’m black. And white. So would the white side of me have to pay the black side of me?… Everyone is a victim… Remember when LeBron complained about NFL owners having a “slave mentality?” Yes. Please. Sign me up for that plantation. Last time I checked, slaves weren’t paid a dime, let alone millions, for playing with a ball… But some people cannot leave the ideological plantation.

By Michael Hichborn, Lepanto Institute – The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), an anti-poverty agency of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), is providing a $750,000 grant to the Ignatian Solidarity Network (ISN) over the next three years. Announcing the grant on its website, ISN president Christopher Kerr said, “The Ignatian Solidarity Network staff and board are grateful for the support of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.”

By Edward Pentin, EWTN News – Cardinal Robert Sarah has said he is “hurt to see so many priests selling off Catholic doctrine and sowing division among the faithful,” and that seeking to “win media popularity at the price of truth is like doing the work of Judas.”… The prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments also said that those who “loudly announce change and rupture are false prophets” and are “not looking for the good of the flock” but are “mercenaries smuggled into the sheepfold.”

By Jamie Gass and Ben Degrow, The Hill – The Supreme Court of the United States is expected to decide whether to hear Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, a case that reveals the harm a state constitutional amendment marked by religious bias can do to families… Kendra Espinoza, who suddenly became a single mom, sought a better education for her daughters. In their public schools, one daughter was bullied and the other struggled academically. Both later would thrive in parochial school… After the Montana Supreme Court struck down her state’s education tax credit program, Espinoza was denied access to scholarships her children badly needed…

By Casey Chalk, Crisis Magazine – Dr. Eduardo Echeverria, professor of philosophy and systematic theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan… “I have now come to accept that Francis has contributed to the current crisis in the Church—doctrinal, moral, and ecclesial—due to the lack of clarity, ambiguity of his words and actions, one-sidedness in formulating issues, and a tendency for demeaning Christian doctrine and the moral law.”

By Bob Kellogg, OneNewsNow – Linda Harvey of Mission: America contends that games such as this are meant to create anarchy in America. “Getting 10-year-olds to handle condoms [and] put condoms on male, anatomical models is just one way to severely desensitize them and normalize sex in all kinds of directions…”… According to Harvey, the school may send in a Planned Parenthood representative to take over if a teacher chooses not to teach the curriculum. She says the children “will be lied to” if that happens… “And then there’s also, of course, the money issue,” Harvey continues. “There’s a lot of money coming into these promoters of sexually explicit sex-education lessons.”

By Dorothy Cummings McLean, LifeSiteNews – Fr. Murray believes that this is the “fulfillment of a dream” of liberals in the Church after Vatican II, “which was to abolish priestly celibacy.”… “Celibacy is connatural with the priesthood,” Murray argued… “Jesus Christ was not married. And from the ancient times in the Church, married men who were ordained were asked to live (in continence), and then the Church went to ordaining just celibate males.”

By Catholic News Agency – Missouri’s health department on Friday rejected a license-renewal request from a Planned Parenthood facility in St. Louis, the last remaining abortion business in the state.Pro-life groups have been calling for the business’ closure.“This particular facility’s track record shows an appalling pattern of botched abortions and other violations that prove they are incapable of policing themselves,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, said May 31. “Planned Parenthood does not deserve special treatment, and the health and safety of women should never come second to the abortion industry’s bottom line.”

Catholic News Agency – The Archdiocese of Indianapolis announced Thursday that a local Jesuit high school will no longer be recognized as a Catholic school, due to a disagreement about the employment of a teacher who attempted to contract a same-sex marriage… “All those who minister in Catholic educational institutions carry out an important ministry in communicating the fullness of Catholic teaching to students both by word and action inside and outside the classroom,” the archdiocese said in a statement Thursday.

By Patti Armstrong, EWTN News – It hardly seems like a coincidence that June is the month for both pride parades and Eucharistic processions. One promotes the body for unbridled sexual pleasure and the other honors the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ. It is a clash between Heaven and Hell… I wince at the cheers rendered to young boys in drag gyrating alongside scantily clad men in Pride parades. How did that ever stop being grounds for child abuse?… In the other corner of the supernatural world, there are Eucharistic processions for the Solemnity of Corpus Christ, commemorating the institution of the Holy Eucharist where Christ gave us his Body and Blood.

By Sam Guzman, The Catholic Gentleman – The Catholic faith represents the most complex, consistent, and complete system of ideas among all the competing philosophies of humanity. It is a veritable cathedral of human thought. In a real way, the Church has thought of everything, and that is because she relies not just on human ingenuity but divine inspiration. Every other merely human system of thought is completely erroneous, wildly contradictory, impossible to live by, or all of the above.

By Fr. Richard Heilman – Father Richard Heilman joins Dr Taylor Marshall to discuss the “weapons” of Catholic spirituality and explain how Catholics “removed their battle armor” and “dropped their weapons” in the 1970s and 1980s and how our enemy was so successful. From here, we unpack how we can “GO IN” and reclaim that surrendered ground given to Satan over the past several decades.

By Shelby Talcott, The Daily Caller – A video of a newborn girl abandoned in a garbage dump in India went viral last week on Twitter, and a couple says they used the platform to find and try to adopt her… The graphic video shows a tiny baby naked and crying in the dirt. It was posted on Twitter where Sakshi Joshi, associate editor and news anchor with News 24 TV Channel, re-posted it asking for her followers to help find where the baby was located. She tweeted that her and her husband Vinod Kapri, also a journalist, wanted to adopt the baby.

By Diane Montagna, LifeSiteNews – Cardinal Raymond Burke is challenging recent assertions made by Amazon Synod organizers, saying “it is not honest” to suggest that the October meeting is “treating the question of clerical celibacy for that region alone.”.. “If [the synod] takes up the question, which I do not think it is right for it to do, it will be treating a discipline of the universal Church”… “In fact,” the cardinal added, “already a certain Bishop in Germany has announced that, if the Holy Father grants a relaxation of the obligation of perfect continence for the clergy in the Amazon Region, the Bishops of Germany will ask for the same relaxation.”

By Msgr. Charles Pope – But because actual possession is quite rare, most of us should be looking out for the more common ways that the devil attacks us. His usual tactics are more subtle and pervasive, and we ought not let the exotic distract us from the more commonplace. One of the key elements in any contest is to understand the tactics of your opponent and to recognize the subtleties of his strategy. In the spiritual battle of life we need to develop some sophistication in recognizing, naming, and understanding the subtleties of the Devil’s common tactics.

By Rachel del Guidice, The Daily Signal – Planned Parenthood and the state of Missouri are still at odds over whether or not the state’s only remaining abortion clinic will be allowed to stay open… The state of Missouri says that it won’t renew the license of the St. Louis abortion clinic after three failed abortions that resulted in “additional surgeries and another led to life-threatening complications for the mother, according to a now-sealed court filing that Planned Parenthood alleges state officials made public in violation of patient-privacy laws”

By Kevin Daley, The Daily Caller – The Supreme Court turned back a constitutional challenge to a 40-foot World War I memorial cross in Maryland Thursday, finding that the monument does not violate the First Amendment… Justice Samuel Alito delivered the opinion for the Court, with a total of seven justices finding that the memorial — known colloquially as the Peace Cross — should be upheld. The decision drew a deluge of separate opinions. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor were the two dissenters.

By Fr. Mike Schmitz, Ascension Presents – What is the priest thinking when you make your confession? Fr. Mike reveals the answer in this video from The 99, a simple three-part system will help you quickly and easily organize an effective, ongoing evangelization effort in your parish or community.

By Victor Davis Hanson, Patriot Post – In May 2018, the Donald Trump administration withdrew the U.S. from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, popularly known as the Iran nuclear deal… The U.S. then ramped up sanctions on the Iranian theocracy to try to ensure that it stopped nuclear enrichment. The Trump administration also hoped a strapped Iran would become less capable of funding terrorist operations in the Middle East and beyond, proxy wars in the Persian Gulf, and the opportune harassment of ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz… The sanctions are clearly destroying an already weak Iranian economy. Iran is now suffering from negative economic growth, massive unemployment and record inflation.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – A federal appeals court today ruled President Donald Trump can partially defund planned Parenthood while the abortion business’ lawsuit against his administration’s new rules moves forward.As LifeNews reported in March, the Trump administration finalized an administrative rule that would partially defund the Planned Parenthood abortion business and deprive it of as much as $60 million in taxpayer dollars. This action adds to President Trump’s record of defunding the Planned Parenthood abortion company.

By Catholic News Agency – Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo signed the Reproductive Privacy Act on Wednesday. The act codifies the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade into state law… The law permits unrestricted access to abortion at any time up to “fetal viability,” a disputed term with no fixed scientific meaning. Even after supposed viability, abortion will still be legal in cases where the life or health of the mother is at risk… Raimondo, a Catholic, said when signing the bill that the abortion issue was a difficult one and that “there are good and principled people on both sides of the issue.”

By Michele Chronister, Catholic Exchange – The hierarchy and priesthood exist solely to serve the people of God. They exist to tend to the Church, and to help to distribute graces to the laity. Any power they have is not theirs, but rather Christ’s. Their only job is to allow Christ to work through them. Any time they make their priesthood about themselves, their own preferences, or how they think things should be done, we can see shades of clericalism. Anytime they submit themselves to Christ and his Church, then we see an image of what priesthood is intended to be.

By Church Militant – Church Militant has been handed documents from personnel in the archdiocese of Chicago who are fed up with the lies and cover-ups… The papers were kept in the secret vault in the Chicago archdiocese and detail allegations of sexual abuse of a minor by former Cardinal Joseph Bernardin… Law enforcement officials now tell Church Militant that what certainly appears to be a cover-up by Cupich and the archdiocese to protect America’s most prominent homosexualist cardinal is only the tip of the iceberg… In addition to abuse of minors, failure to internally investigate and covering up Bernardin’s deeds, officials are now looking into charges directly related to Cupich’s tenure in Chicago involving financial misappropriation and corruption.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – Let’s look at three reasons our soul needs purification… Our soul, too, can be weighed down with excesses and defects… Drawing from the spiritual masters and St. Thomas Aquinas, Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange details three reasons that our soul needs purification, especially as we begin to make progress. They are spiritual pride, spiritual gluttony, and spiritual sloth.

By Tony Perkins, Family Research Council – Even from Planned Parenthood, the tweet is almost too unreal to believe. Here they are, accused of massive health violations in Missouri, and the organization posts a picture of the state, broken in half. “No safe, legal abortion in Missouri,” they posted — not that there ever were any, thanks to Leana Wen’s group… Would you take a woman you cared about to a clinic with 30 health violations?.. When inspectors flagged the St. Louis facility for more than two dozen deficiencies, it wasn’t because they had a political vendetta. It was because America’s biggest abortion business had put lives in jeopardy — and not just unborn one.

By John Bergsma, The Sacred Page – I love the early summer liturgical “trifecta” of Pentecost, Trinity, and Corpus Christi, forming a kind of “encore” to the joyful Easter Season focusing in succession on three fundamental realities of the Christian life: the Church, the Triune Godhead, and the Eucharist.This “trifecta” comes to an end this week with the celebration of the Body and Blood of Christ.

By Gabriele Kuby, LifeSiteNews – Why had the Church given up protecting her flock from the wolves, especially the young generation? Because she had not followed the Holy Father, Paul VI, in his 1968 passionate call in Humanae Vitae to hold on to the meaning of sexuality in the good order of Creation: pro-creation. Once the sexual act and procreation are systematically severed, which became possible through the pill of all pills, the door was opened to any and all kinds of sexual satisfaction of the body… Half a century has passed since then, and the Church may be in its greatest crisis.

By Charlie Butts, OneNewsNow – The public is being kept in the dark about the history of Missouri’s last abortion clinic… A ruling by Federal Judge Michael Stelzer has forced Missouri health officials into allowing Planned Parenthood to continue operating in St. Louis without a license. Stelzer has also sealed all records showing shoddy practices at the abortuary… “The fact that they’re not complying [or] cooperating with the investigation is very dangerous,” argues Cheryl Sullenger with Operation Rescue…

By William Mahoney, Ph.D., Church Militant – On Tuesday, Complicit Clergy published the results of a survey on the trustworthiness and orthodoxy of individual U.S. bishops… Participants were invited to rate their bishops with one (“Mostly Distrust”) to five (“Completely Trust”) stars for trustworthiness and one to five stars for orthodoxy (adherence to the teachings of the Catholic Church) with an option to comment… Cupich was ranked the worst bishop in the country and received 67 comments, none of which were positive.

By Stephen Snyder, Crisis Magazine – In attendance at that presentation and Mass were a devout Catholic mother and—compulsorily—her 16-year-old son. Her son had wanted nothing to do with the Mass or with the Faith of the family. During the Mass, though, something changed. Her son’s attention was riveted on every word, action, and song of the Mass. Afterward, he thanked his mother profusely for having brought him to the Mass, exclaiming, “That was the most beautiful, the most sacred thing I have ever seen!”

By Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews – The Gates Foundation has a long history of pushing birth control on some of the world’s poorest countries – though leaders say their people need clean water, food and basic health care. The Gates family says the foundation does not support abortions, but it gives money to some of the largest abortion providers in the world, including the International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International.

By Alexandra Greeley, National Catholic Register – If you live anywhere near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, collect Cajun-Creole cookbooks or watch food shows on PBS, the name “Chef John Folse” will ring all sorts of kitchen chimes. After all, his culinary empire includes—among others—the White Oak Estate and Gardens for weddings and social events, the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute at Nicholls State University, and his Cajun and Creole Company Store that stocks Cajun and Creole food products plus affiliated cookbooks.

By Dylan Gwinn, Breitbart – NFL legend and Super Bowl Champion Burgess Owens, does not agree with the Democrats about much. However, he does agree with them about reparations, except he believes the Democrats should be the only ones who have to pay them… During stirring testimony in front of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Reparations, Owens blasted the Democratic Party “for all the misery” they’ve brought to blacks; citing everything from the party’s support of slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow laws, and abortion.

By Stephen Beale, Aleteia – The Sacred Heart is among the most familiar and moving of Catholic devotional images. But its symbolism can also be strange. As we mark the Feast of the Sacred Heart early this month, here is a look at the explanation behind some of the features of the Sacred Heart. The flames. The Sacred Heart most obviously brings to mind the Passion of Christ on the cross. There is the crown of thorns, the cross, usually atop the heart, and the wound from the spear that pierced His side. But why is the Sacred Heart always shown as if it’s on fire?

By Tom Ciccotta, Breitbart – University of California System President Janet Napolitano released a statement condemning the Trump administration over new restrictions on fetal tissue research. UCSF, which lost a $2 million federal contract for fetal tissue research, says the decision is not based on “sound science.”… The New York Times reported earlier this month that the Trump administration had adopted a restriction on fetal tissue research. The restrictions also marked the end of a $2 million annual contract with the University of California San Francisco for fetal tissue research…

By Church Militant, Church Militant – Michael Voris sits down with Fr. Paul Sullins, author of the groundbreaking 2018 report showing a near-100% correlation between the rise in self-identified gay clergy and the rise in clergy sex abuse primarily of males.

By Chad Groening, OneNewsNow – A longtime conservative activist is praising President Donald Trump for staking out a tough stance against the Islamic Republican of Iran… “Countries with governments like Iran only understand one thing and that’s strength,” Gary Bauer.. Bauer, a former Reagan official who leads American Values, was reacting to the drone attacks on container ships in the Persian Gulf… That incident is just the latest example of escalating tension in the region after the Pentagon warned U.S. armed forces of credible threats linked to Iran in recent weeks.

By Justin Dyer, Public Discourse – C.S. Lewis did concede that the idea of a right to the pursuit of happiness is “cherished by all civilized men, but especially by Americans.” However, the authors of the American Declaration of Independence, according to Lewis, could only have meant that we have a right “‘to pursue happiness by all lawful means’: that is, by all means which the Law of Nature eternally sanctions and which the laws of the nation shall sanction.”

By Heather Brandon-Smith, The American Conservative – After an earlier closed-door briefing on May 21 by interim defense secretary Patrick Shanahan, Congressman Ruben Gallego told reporters [2], “What I heard in there makes it clear that this administration feels that they do not have to come back and talk to Congress in regards to any action they do in Iran.”… This makes what’s been happening on Capitol Hill today all the more urgent. This month could mark the first time a chamber of the U.S. Congress has moved to repeal the 2001 AUMF, which has been used by three presidents to keep the U.S. in a state of war for nearly 18 years.

By Patrick Goodenough, CNSNews – The Democratic Party “has become more radical, more dangerous, and more unhinged than at any point in the modern history of our country,” President Trump said on Tuesday night… In a no-holds-barred speech in Orlando, Florida kicking off his re-election campaign, Trump lashed out at the Democratic Party, hitting it particularly hard on the issue of border security… “No matter what label they use, a vote for any Democrat in 2020 is a vote for the rise of radical socialism and the destruction of the American dream”…

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – Generations of good and faithful lay Catholics have responded to problems with commendable displays of loyalty, humbly accepting direction from the clergy and the bishops, swallowing hard and suppressing any misgivings they might have felt. But that approach has its limitations. Loyalty becomes dysfunctional when it requires acceptance of objectively immoral situations. You should always show respect for your father, but if your father’s behavior is harming the entire family, you also have responsibilities to protect your mother and your siblings.

By Lauretta Brown, National Catholic Register – The pressing question of how to respond to politicians in open defiance of Catholic teachings on issues like abortion and marriage came up in Baltimore during the U.S. bishops’ spring meeting… Several bishops explained to the Register the factors that need to be taken into consideration when a bishop responds to a politician’s flagrant defiance of Church teachings… The question is timely, as several Democrats running in the 2020 presidential election who identify as Catholic have backed taxpayer-funded abortion up until birth.

By George Weigel, First Things – But in the Wild West of the Internet blogosphere… as in Twitter’s playpen of snark, there is little room for serious social and political analysis these days, much less serious, theologically-informed social and political analysis. And thanks to click-bait bloggers and incontinent tweeters, some serious damage is currently being done to authentic Catholic social doctrine, which some misidentify with a new authoritarianism and others warp by bending to the progressive cause of the day.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – There is a Christian hymn, written in the 1940s during World War II, that says, “In times like these, you need a Savior. In times like these, you need an anchor. Be very sure, be very sure, your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock.”… There are very few faithful Catholics who are not shocked and dismayed by the rapidity of decline into confusion (sexual and otherwise) of a culture once described as Judeo-Christian. Whatever our sectarian differences of the past… there was at least basic agreement on the fundamentals of biblical morality and the authority of the Word of God. Most of this is gone—and it has gone quickly. Consider some of the things going on in the world today….

By Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews – A new report from the Guttmacher Institute shows how pro-life advocates can make a difference when they elect pro-life leaders to office… Since 2011, state lawmakers have passed a record 479 abortion restrictions in 33 states, according to Guttmacher, the former research arm of Planned Parenthood. To put that number into perspective, states have passed 1,271 pro-life laws since 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade, the report states. This means more than one third of all pro-life laws in the U.S. have been approved in the past decade.

By Dennis Prager, The Stream – When assessing America’s or any of the Western world’s universities — wondering whether you should send your child to one; whether you should pay for a child to attend one; whether you should go into great debt to attend one; whether you should donate money to one; and related questions — it would seem that the single most important question to be answered is: What type of person does the university produce?

By Anthony Esolen, Crisis Magazine – No, I take a common-sense approach to the vow. A young soldier swears to defend the flag of the United States. He does so while knowing nothing of barbed wire and trenches. We hold him to that vow, and do not accept ignorance or immaturity as excuses. In time of war we subject deserters to a court-martial, with the firing squad ready at hand. A young man in business signs a contract. We hold him to it, and do not accept ignorance or bad fortune as excuses. If he reneges, he may be hauled into civil court for damages.

By Stacy A. Trasancos, National Catholic Register – Words.. are much more fluid than numbers, which are precise. A trick in rhetoric, then, is to use words in an intentionally ambiguous way to conjure up mental images that sway the mind. It is always worth a critical examination of the language of slogans — especially when innocent human life hangs on the true meaning of every word… Of all creatures, humans can know and be known, love and be loved — we can belong. “Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons” (CCC, 357).

By Dr. Tod Worner, Word on Fire – How can some people take such devilish delight in tormenting a vulnerable young man while others weep inconsolably at the prospect of having accidentally hurt a child?… It has to do with dignity… Dignity is not some clunky construct or squishy metric. It is not a “stupid” concept as was once argued by fashionable psychologist Stephen Pinker. Dignity is the quality of being intrinsically valuable. It is not earned. It is not ephemeral. It is not cheap. It is not something that human beings can give or take away… Dignity is a condition of being. More specifically, it is the state of being a child of God.

By Arthur Goldberg, The Stream – One can see the tension between globalism and nationalism foreshadowed in several parts of the Bible. In particular, the Tower of Babel. (Gen. 10-11) Here was the first, and failed attempt to impose a worldwide orthodoxy of speech and thought. Nimrod (Gen. 10: 8) is identified by Biblical commentators as the principal force behind building the Tower. He sought to impose a uniform political and cultural pattern in place of the structure then existing. This uniformity would be independent of G-d’s plan of creation and the moral values G-d established.

By George Neumayr, The American Spectator – “Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is confirming that, as papal nuncio, he received complaints of homosexual predation and harassment by Msgr. Walter Rossi, rector of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.,” reports Christine Niles of Church Militant… Speaking to the Italian journalist Marco Tosatti recently, Viganò said, ”Monsignor Rossi is, without a doubt, a member of the ‘gay mafia.’ You can read about him online on The American Spectator website.”

By Edward Peters – Earlier today Cdl. Dolan of New York tweeted: “With the clear and cogent clarification of the successor of St. Peter, there now exists no loophole to morally justify capital punishment.”… The supposedly clear and cogent clarification that Dolan has in mind must be Pope Francis’ 2018 modification of the Catechism of the Catholic Church to assert that the death penalty is “inadmissible”. But, while it is likely that Francis meant what Dolan said, the pope did not quite claim what the cardinal clearly did.

By Mary Margaret Olohan, Daily Caller – Several states have enacted abortion legislation in the past year hoping the Supreme Court will revisit its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and other pro-choice advocates have spoken against restrictive abortion laws… Leana Wen became president of Planned Parenthood of America in November 2018. Since then, she has advocated strongly for unrestricted access to abortion and fought back against new abortion regulations… But these adults whose lives have been impacted by the abortion industry want Wen to know that their lives, and the lives of their unborn children, are of value.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – Sunday, June 23, I will have the privilege of carrying the Lord Jesus in a Corpus Christi procession through the heart of the Capitol Hill area in Washington, D.C. We have named it “Corpus Christi in the Capital.” It will begin at 1:00 PM at my parish (Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian Church, 1357 East Capitol St. SE) and proceed for approximately one mile, past the Capitol and Supreme Court, ending at St. Joseph’s Church (313 2nd St. NE). I have long desired to do this, and God-willing we will process this Sunday.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – Actor Kevin Sorbo, the star of “Hercules” and “God’s Not Dead,” is on the short list of actors in Hollywood with a profound respect for unborn children killed in abortions… Sorbo has spoken out repeatedly against abortion and over the weekend he took Democrats to task for daring to claim they are more virtuous… “A party that supports abortion over Life … is going to lecture me on morals. Don’t think so,” he wrote on Twitter.

By Fr. Shenan J. Boquet, Human Life International – Poll after poll has found that most Americans are deeply divided over abortion. One recent poll, for instance, found that a solid 50% of Americans say that, in general, abortion is “morally wrong,” whereas only 42% said that it is “morally acceptable.” Another recent poll found that almost 80% of Americans oppose abortion in the third trimester. Yet another poll this year found that 75% of Americans favor restricting abortion to – at the very most – the first three months of pregnancy…

By James V. Schall, S.J. (1928-2019), The Catholic Thing – “The twelve gates (of the New Jerusalem) were twelve pearls, each of the gates made from a single pearl; and the street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass.”… We have here yet another effort, this time from a pretty good source, to imagine what heaven might be like, a topic difficult to let alone. Even the modern heathen do not reject it. They just want to locate it in their version of this world. Their “new” New Jerusalem always turns out, sooner or later, to be yet another horrendous version of the Brave New World rather than the City of God.

By William Kilpatrick, Crisis Magazine – Was there an actual penetration of the Church by agents of communism and/or Freemasonry? Marshall does name some names, and he does offer evidence, but although his evidence is not always conclusive, it is suggestive. Earlier popes were certainly worried about the influence of Masons and Modernists. Pope Leo XIII published four encyclicals against Freemasonry, and Pope Pius X was convinced that Modernists had infiltrated the clergy and the seminaries.

By Peter Jesserer Smith, WorldProNews – As part of its push to eliminate or greatly restrict federal funds involved with fetal-tissue research, the Trump administration canceled a medical research contract with the University of California, where fetal cells were infused with mouse immune systems… “Promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President Trump’s administration,”… The announcement may give hope for Catholics that the time has come to push for the development or distribution of ethical vaccines whose source cells did not involve the taking of a human life by abortion.

By Christopher Altieri, Catholic Herald – If the allegations against Michael J Bransfield, the former Bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, as well as those regarding the scores of clerics who benefitted from his largesse, are correct, it would suggest that too many in the hierarchical leadership of the Church do not believe St Paul in any meaningful sense of the word, or else have become so used to an unseemly cultural reality that their good sense has been almost totally eclipsed.

By Christine Niles, Church Militant – Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is confirming that, as papal nuncio, he received complaints of homosexual predation and harassment by Msgr. Walter Rossi, rector of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C… “Monsignor Rossi is, without a doubt, a member of the ‘gay mafia,'” Viganò said in remarks to Italian journalist Marco Tosatti on Saturday… In spite of claims to the contrary by supporters of Pope Francis, Viganò’s testimony has been confirmed multiple times, most recently by a cache of letters published by Msgr. Anthony Figueiredo, former personal secretary to McCarrick.

By Fr. Mike Schmitz, Ascension Presents – If you think you don’t have the capacity for evil, it’s probably because you haven’t had the opportunity to do it… A friend of Fr. Mike’s was recovering from an addiction, and this friend noticed how he was deceiving himself. He was telling himself “I would never …” when he should have been saying, “I haven’t yet …”.. Many times the sins we avoid we have only avoided because we haven’t had the opportunity to commit them…

By David Daleiden, LifeNews – President Trump’s pro-life administration showed transformative leadership this week, prohibiting government laboratories from trafficking in aborted baby parts and intensifying the protection of human subjects for any remaining outside “research” authorized by statute. This new, exacting oversight is crucial… I speak from some personal experience, having participated in gathering the Center for Medical Progress’ undercover videos of top-level Planned Parenthood leaders, who admitted the organization’s involvement in the trade in baby body parts.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – on the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, we do well to remember that we are pondering a mystery that cannot fit in our minds… A mystery, though, is not something wholly unknown. In the Christian tradition, the word “mystery” refers (among other things) to something that is partially revealed, something much more of which remains hidden. Thus, as we ponder the Trinity, consider that although there are some things we can know by revelation, much more is beyond our understanding.

By Tim Wildmon, OneNewsNow – Somewhere along the way, the month of June was designated Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Queer (LGBTQ) Pride month. Friends, we must beware the perversion that boasts in this kind of pride… Still, it is celebrated all over the country by governments, businesses, etc. The colors of the rainbow are used to signify the LGBTQ movement. Parades commemorating it go on in many places. There is no question that the LGBTQ movement is mainstream America now.

By Edward Pentin – What power does the laity have?… First off, number one, I think you’ve got to cut off the money. The donors have to cut off. If they won’t listen, if you don’t have these committees that are trying to engage, then they will listen to one thing, and that is if you cut off the money. That means you directly give to the building or whatever is in your parish to make sure that your parish continues to thrive, but you cut off any giving that would go to a diocese and back to Rome.

By Nicole Russell, Daily Signal – A vast array of corporations have come out in support of abortion in recent weeks—specifically to oppose “heartbeat bills” that ban abortion after six weeks, such as the ones recently signed into law in Georgia, Missouri, and Alabama… Last week, leaders of more than 180 companies… signed a letter in a full-page ad in The New York Times, saying that “restricting access to comprehensive reproductive care, including abortion, threatens the health, independence, and economic stability of our employees and customers.”

By CNSNews.com Staff – the pope explained … “This second Dialogue is taking place at a critical moment. Today’s ecological crisis, especially climate change, threatens the very future of the human family. This is no exaggeration. For too long we have collectively failed to listen to the fruits of scientific analysis and “doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain” (Laudato Si’, 161). Any discussion of climate change and the energy transition must be rooted, then, in “the results of the best scientific research available today, letting them touch us deeply”…

By Amy K. Hall, The Stream – Feminist Sophie Lewis has a series of videos promoting her new book, Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family, and this clip caught my eye… “We have very little to lose at the moment when it comes to abortion, and I’m interested in winning radically. And I wonder if we could think about defending abortion as a right to stop doing gestational work… Abortion is, in my opinion — and I recognize how controversial this is — a form of killing. It is a form of killing that we need to be able to defend… I am not interested in where a human life starts to exist. I see the forms of making and unmaking each other as, sort of, continuous processes.”

By John M. Grondelski, Crisis Magazine – Thomas Paprocki, the bishop of Springfield (the state capital of Illinois), has issued a decree barring the Illinois State Senate President and House Speaker—both ostensibly Catholics—from receiving Communion in the diocese.  The June 2 decision took place in response to enactment of abortion legislation codifying in state law an unlimited abortion liberty through birth, in the event that Roe et al. v. Wade was judicially modified.  Paprocki’s decree also states that Illinois Catholic legislators who voted for the bill should also not receive Communion until they first are “reconciled to Christ and the Church.”

By Martin M. Barillas, LifeSiteNews – Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago defended giving Holy Communion to pro-abortion politicians, saying, “I think it would be counterproductive to impose sanctions, simply because they don’t change anybody’s minds.”… Cardinal Cupich expressed his position in the wake of Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois barring pro-abortion legislators from receiving the sacrament of Holy Communion.

By Mark Burkholder, Those Catholic Men – Sadly, for boys today, adolescence may be the end of boyhood, but it does not signal a smooth transition into mature character and belonging. It is usually a time where sin is introduced, new family tensions arise, and a frantic sequence of identities are “tried on” until something sticks or seems to work. According to popular “culture” and the media, the things that grown men can do are basically debaucheries: adult beverages, adult movies, adult clubs, adult language. We communicate to boys that to be a man, an adult, is to have the license to sin.

By The Editors, National Catholic Register – Days after Illinois lawmakers passed legislation that secured legal abortion as a fundamental right, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield took swift action, issuing a directive that explicitly banned two Chicago-area Catholic Democrats — House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton — from receiving Holy Communion in his diocese… The two legislators “have obstinately persisted in promoting the abominable crime and very grave sin of abortion as evidenced by the influence they exerted in their leadership roles and their repeated votes and obdurate public support for abortion rights over an extended period of time,” read Bishop Paprocki’s decree.

The Washington Post – “The bishops are the ones making the conclusions,” said Anne Burke, an Illinois Supreme Court justice who chaired the church’s National Review Board when the sexual abuse crisis first erupted in 2002. She called the new system enacted on Thursday “a fallacy.”“There should be no intermediary — call the police,” she said. “There should be one interview, by professionals.”

By Diane Montagna, LifeSiteNews – In the wake of two recent pieces in the Washington Post relating to Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, an article and an extended interview (the first the archbishop has granted since his initial allegations concerning Pope Francis), renewed insinuations and smears have been directed at the former diplomat of the Holy See… In his June 10 interview, the archbishop claims that the actions so far taken against McCarrick are chiefly inspired by a desire to prevent a trial of the former cardinal, which might expose the complicity of other churchmen in his actions and the ensuing coverup.

By Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, OnePeterFive – Dr. Vince Fortanasce, an internationally renowned Alzheimer’s researcher, has bemoaned the fact that Catholics have pretty much accepted the rise of marijuana in our country without a fight. Although he acknowledges that we need more research, he points out that there has been enough to conclusively point to marijuana’s dangerous impact on the brain, especially for adolescents and young adults. The moderate consumption of alcohol has a strong place in the Catholic tradition, and Catholics need to be able to distinguish this practice from the use of a drug. We should not equate it with the recreational use of marijuana.

By Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D., Breitbart – Pope Francis demanded absolute loyalty from his ambassadors Thursday, following months of pressure after a former nuncio accused the pontiff of covering up for serial sex abuser Theodore McCarrick… In his written address to papal envoys gathered in the Vatican, the pope said that in all circumstances a nuncio must be unconditionally “the pope’s man.”… “Being the pope’s representative is therefore irreconcilable with criticizing the pope behind his back, writing blogs, or joining groups hostile to him, the Curia and the Church of Rome,” Francis said.

By Nayeli Riano, Daily Signal – Hispanics and pro-life advocacy go together naturally, in no small part because of Hispanics’ Christian faith… Studies have shown that most Hispanics are religiously observant, with about 83% of them affirming a religious affiliation. More important than statistics, however, and more indicative of their views on the issue of abortion, is the emotion with which they explain their culture and views on life.

By Thomas D. Williams, PH. D., Breitbart – Pope Francis warned of disastrous consequences if humanity does not immediately react to the threat of climate change, since the world has reached a “critical moment” and there is no time to waste… “Dear friends, time is running out!” the pope told a group of participants in a Vatican-sponsored conference on energy transition Friday. “We cannot afford the luxury of waiting for others to come forward or of prioritizing short-term economic benefits. The climate crisis requires decisive action from us, here and now.”

By Dr. Susan Berry, Breitbart – The law, which takes effect September 1, bars local governments from contracting in any way with abortion providers, and blocks cities from advocating for them… The resolution declaring Waskom a “sanctuary city for the unborn” was modeled after one passed in Roswell, New Mexico, though Waskom’s ordinance makes it the first city in the nation to actually ban abortions… Mark Lee Dickson, Right to Life East Texas director, told Fox News he became frustrated when lawmakers in Austin failed to pass “meaningful legislation that protects human life.”

By Gayle Somers, Catholic Exchange – “Jesus said to His disciples: ‘I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when He comes, the Spirit of truth, He will guide you to all truth.”… This is such a fascinating statement by Jesus. It suggests that while He was still with the apostles, their ability to comprehend all that He was doing was limited. Even if He had explained everything that was about to happen on the night of the Last Supper in det it wail,ould have been lost on them. Instead, He tells them they would, at a future time, get the help they would need to absorb the truth of His life and work.

By Christopher Manion, Ph.D., The Stream – But Trump is the most pro-life president in recent memory. Will Catholic bishops defend him?… They certainly defend Pelosi. After all, she calls herself “a practicing and respectful Catholic.”… Today, the Democrats are the party of abortion and infanticide. But they are strong advocates of the bishops’ trinity of political priorities. These include fighting “racism,” passing amnesty for illegal aliens, and expanding the welfare state… Finally, the one issue that haunts the bishops and their friendship with Democrats is abortion. Every Democrat running now has to support infanticide to please his core pro-abortion supporters…

By Edward Peters – No one thought that Chicago’s Blase Cdl. Cupich would follow Springfield’s Bp. Thomas Paprocki’s example in calling upon Catholic state legislators, who had supported Illinois’ express attack on the basic rights of pre-born babies, to refrain from holy Communion until they repented of their evil deed (Canon 916), further directing that his ministers withhold holy Communion from two specific legislators based on their protracted and public support of such measures (Canon 915), so no one was surprised when Cupich didn’t…

By Diane Montagna, LifeSiteNews – A Catholic psychologist has denounced the latest Vatican document on gender theory as containing “not one sentence of sound advice for parents who try to educate their children towards the virtues necessary for a Christian life.”… In a searing critique, Dr. Gerard J.M. van den Aarweg, a Dutch psychologist and psychoanalyst specializing in the treatment of persons with homosexual tendencies, condemned the recent Vatican document on gender theory, saying “the aggressive neo-pagan sexual ideology of the world has no wisdom we might share. The task of the Church is not dialoguing but teaching and correcting, there is a relentless spiritual war going on in the field of sexuality, marriage, and the family.”

By Mary Pezzulo, Patheos – Thankfully, the Washington Post came out with an investigative story less than 20 minutes after the letter was published, and it fills in some of the blanks. A thousand dollars were spent per month on alcohol alone. $4.6 million were spent on renovating an entire private residence after a single bathroom sustained some fire damage. Bransfield had his house decked out in fresh floral arrangements which were delivered daily, to the tune of $100 per day. He also allegedly harassed, kissed, touched or exposed himself to at least nine adult men; the people around him feared to leave him alone with an altar server.

The CatholicTV Network – Ryan and Mary Rose Verret joins us today to talk about Catholic relationships, marriage prep, and their ministry Witness to Love… Witness to Love is marriage prep that works to connect couples to their parishes through mentors and powerful online resources! The key to Witness to Love is that engaged couples are invited to choose their own mentors. Unlike other mentor models there is no need to build trust in order for the marriage prep process to work — the trust already exists.

By Adriana Thurdekoos, Human Life International – And both parents became victims of abortion, too. Carlos felt sadness, powerless, concerned, couldn’t sleep…and many more symptoms, such as those mentioned in the HLI brochure, “Men and Abortion.” When I spoke with him over the phone, I urged him to read a lot of this literature so that that he could better deal with post-abortion syndrome. I prayed with him, to try to make his “deep loneliness” turn to peace. He was even still worried about the physical and mental health of his girlfriend…

By Darel E. Paul, First Things – In his advice to princes, Niccolò Machiavelli observed, “there are two kinds of fighting: the one with laws, the other with force.” The travails of long-suffering Colorado baker Jack Phillips prove Machiavelli’s maxim correct. In Colorado, public accommodations law has little to do with justice and a lot to do with fighting… Last week a private legal suit was filed in Colorado District Court against Jack Phillips, proprietor of the Denver-area bakery Masterpiece Cakeshop. This is the third suit in seven years charging Phillips with discriminatory business practices.

By Patrick J. Buchanan – “History is repeating itself, and with a vengeance,” John Dean told the judiciary committee, drawing a parallel between Watergate, which brought down Richard Nixon, and “Russiagate” which has bedeviled Donald Trump… But what strikes this veteran of Nixon’s White House is not the similarities but the stark differences… Watergate began with an actual crime, a midnight break-in at the offices of the DNC in June 1972 to wiretap phones and filch files, followed by a cover-up that spread into the inner circles of the White House.

By Martina Moyski, Church Militant – Bp. Joseph Strickland of the diocese of Tyler, Texas addressed his brother bishops, stressing his desire that “a full reckoning of the McCarrick scandal be offered.”… The topic of McCarrick had barely been raised in any of the official discussions of the week-long meeting, even though his serial homosexual predation — and the network of bishops complicit in covering for him — was the catalyst for the sex abuse crisis into which the Church has seen itself plunged ever since the announcement of McCarrick’s suspension on June 20, 2018.

By Bill Sheridan, Those Catholic Men – In my case, the who is a combination of Mom, the Presentation Sisters with those daily catechism classes, and other significant adults in my life… I think that Mr. and Mrs. Jones were in their mid-70s when the incident occurred. They were not mean people. Rather, they were elderly and preferred that we not kick or hit balls into or play in their yard. I don’t think they had the stamina to tolerate commotion. We tried to be respectful and never had any ‘little kids vs. old people’ altercations with them. It was clearly understood, however, that it was in everyone’s best interest not to cause them grief.

By Fr. Mike Schmitz, Ascension Press – How we spend our time is one of the most valuable decisions we make, because time is one thing we can never get back once it’s gone… Maybe God is calling you to do something more with your time, in this very moment even, but distractions are pulling you in too many different directions to focus. Make no mistake, distractions steal our time, even those we willfully choose. Even worse, as St. Alphonsus Ligouri said, voluntary distraction can steal our soul.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – As LifeNews reported in May, President Donald Trump issued new rules that further protect doctors, nurses and medical professionals who don’t want to be forced to do abortions or refer for them. Trump announced new regulations through the Department of Health and Human Services that will more effectively enforce existing federal laws that protect the conscience rights of healthcare providers… While the Trump Administration released new rules last month designed to protect them from being forced to violate their conscience, Democrats in Congress think otherwise.

By Ed Condon, CNA – As in the previous discussions on Tuesday, several bishops raised the need for clearly established lay involvement in the process of handling complaints against bishops. Changes to the text of the implementation directives for Vos estis were highlighted as a response to those concerns, something Cardinal Joseph Tobin noted was a “clear expectation” of Vos estis itself… Bishops Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City said that mandatory lay involvement is essential “to make darn sure we bishops do not harm the Church” in the ways seen in recent cases.

By Matt Hadro, CNA – The Hyde Amendment is named for the late Rep. Henry Hyde (D-IL), who sponsored the amendment that was first enacted in 1976, and which prevents taxpayer funding of abortions except in cases of rape or incest. The amendment has passed every year since 1976 as an attachment to spending bills, with bipartisan support… A 2016 study by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of the Susan B. Anthony List, estimated that the amendment has saved over two million lives – or more than 60,000 people per year.

By Nate Jackson, Patriot Post – Bernie Sanders gave what he billed as a big speech Wednesday extolling the “virtues” of democratic socialism. As Mark Alexander wrote on the centennial of the Bolshevik takeover of Russia in 2017, “Between 1917 and 1991, there were almost 150 million civilian casualties of communist dictatorships.” But not to worry; Bernie says they’ve all just been doing it wrong and we should trust him to get socialism right.

By Msgr. Charles Pope – Consider these parallels between abortion and slavery… The courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, used categories of partial humanness prior to the civil war. Slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person for legal purposes and deemed the property of their owners. Today, children in the womb are not deemed persons at all but rather “products of conception.” An unborn child is treated more like a tumor inside the mother’s body than a unique, distinct human being.

By Louise Merrie, Catholic Exchange – This Father’s Day, remember to thank priests for their gift of spiritual fatherhood. They have dedicated their lives to taking care of us spiritually through prayer, the Sacraments, teaching, spiritual counsel, and personal witness… A conversation I had this week with a senior priest friend provided an example of how priests exercise their spiritual paternity. He told me that the following day he planned to concelebrate the funeral Mass of a priest from our diocese, visit a person in prison, and bring Holy Communion to people in their homes who are sick. This is a typical day for many priests.

By Steven Ertelt, Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews – Illinois’s new pro-abortion law has drawn outrage from all across the country. It strips away all legal protections for unborn babies and allows them to be aborted for basically any reason up to birth… But Illinois is not alone… Eight other states also allow unborn babies to be aborted through all nine months of pregnancy and some have done so for years… The states are Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Vermont, along with Washington, D.C. This fact is confirmed by the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion research group and former arm of Planned Parenthood.

By Fr. Dominic Bouck, EWTN News – This past week in the American Catholic world was nothing to brag about. First, the Washington Post dropped a bombshell article outlining a new aspect of the rot that had crept into the American hierarchy, with Bishop Bransfield of West Virginia and his predilection not only for improper sexual favors, but finer worldly things as well. One bad apple? What about the large number of prelates who accepted his donations?

By Jim Russell, Crisis Magazine – A jarring dose of reality is currently rocking the already-distorted world of “LGBT-friendly” Catholics across the globe, courtesy of the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education’s new resource, “Male and Female He Created Them: Towards a Path of Dialogue on the Question of Gender Theory in Education.”… What’s the earth-shaking reveal found in this document that has so many folks in a tizzy? Deep breath, everyone… Men are men, and women are women, despite some people trying to will otherwise.

By Billy Ryan, uCatholic – As Catholics, we pray for the intercession of the saints and angels in Heaven, so that they may pray for us on our behalf… We know that saints and angels are able to intercede for us because John sees in the Book of the Revelation that the saints in Heaven offer up to God the prayers of those on Earth… We pray to saints of a certain patronage to ask for their special intercession. Patron saints can be venerated as the Heavenly advocate and special intercessor for many things, even states.

By Ed Condon, Catholic News – During the November meeting last year, Bishop Liam Carey of Baker noted the “shameful residue” left on all the bishops by McCarrick’s long presence among them. The recent Bransfield report has only strengthened the impression among some Catholics that the bishops are all the same… If the goal is to truly heal the breach of trust, the bishops might find it effective to speak directly about the failings of their brothers, and the outrage it has caused among their own ranks… There is a widespread perception that bishops cannot – must not – be trusted to police themselves…The opportunity is there for the bishops to separate the sheep from the goats in their own ranks, and to offer the kind of personal leadership and vision which some of the people in the pews have almost lost hope of seeing.

By Doug Mainwaring, LifeSiteNews – In an address to the bishops of the U.S., the lay chairman of their National Review Board (NRB) expressed concern that the systems now being set in place by the Vatican and the USCCB to handle episcopal sexual misconduct still leave “bishops policing bishops.”… He also urged greater lay participation and independence from bishops in conducting sexual abuse audits…. “We find ourselves at a turning point, a critical moment in our history, which will determine in many ways the future vibrancy of the Church, and whether or not trust in your leadership can be restored,” said Chairman Francesco Cesareo, Ph.D… “Because of the actions or inactions of some bishops, some in the general public have lost confidence in the body of bishops, despite the sincere efforts of many of you,” noted Cesareo.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – Maine will be the ninth jurisdiction in the U.S. to legalize the life-destroying procedure of assisted suicide. That’s because Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, today signed the bill into law… New Jersey passed a similar law in April. Assisted suicide also is legal in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Washington D.C… The bill narrowly passed the Maine legislature with the Senate voting 19-16 on Tuesday and the House voting 73-72 on Monday.

By Fr. Nicholas Sheehy, LC, Catholic Exchange – There would famously be three secrets, the first of which consisted in the vision of Hell. Now, these are secrets in so much as they are messages from the Blessed Virgin that were not revealed at the time of the apparitions, but much later through the memoirs of Lucia. While the two younger children passed away due to the influenza epidemic of 1918, Lucia lived on and became a religious sister in the Order of Carmelites.

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – Just days ago the head of Planned Parenthood was saying that before Roe v. Wade, thousands of women died each year because of substandard abortions. (There is zero evidence to support that claim, but it was dutifully relayed by the compliant mainstream media.) How is it, then, that a bid to reduce medical standards for the procedure is classified as a measure to protect women’s health?

By Aaron Benavides, Catholic Herald – Bransfield has repeatedly denied claims of sexual misconduct and is reported to have spent nearly $182,000 in fresh flowers for the diocesan chancery, $4.6 million to renovate his residence, and $2.4 million in travel… Lori wrote in a letter that “the accounts of those who accused Bishop Bransfield of sexual harassment are credible” and that the team of investigators “uncovered a consistent pattern of sexual innuendo, and overt suggestive comments and actions toward those over whom the former bishop exercised authority.”

By Msgr. Charles Pope – The priest put this question to a class of children: “If all the good people in the world were red, and all the bad people were green, what color would you be?” A young girl thought hard for a moment, then her face brightened, and she replied, “I’d be streaky!”… We are all a mixed bag, neither completely good nor completely bad. The journey from evil to good is not yet finished. God alone is wholly good.

By Micaiah Bilger, LifeNews – Members of a Texas city council declared their home a “sanctuary city for the unborn” Tuesday in a unanimous vote… KETK News reports leaders of Waskom, an eastern Texas city, said their pro-life ordinance is a preventive measure that they hope will keep abortion businesses out of their area… Waskom is not far from the border of Louisiana, which recently passed a law banning abortions after an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable. City leaders said they do not want abortion businesses to try to open in their city to attract women from across the border.