By Mary Stroka, Catholic Vote – Pope Leo’s second day in Türkiye included a prayer meeting, a visit to a nursing home for the elderly, and an ecumenical prayer service commemorating the Council of Nicaea… at the prayer meeting, which took place at the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Istanbul, the Pontiff delivered a homily to those gathered there, including bishops, priests, deacons, consecrated men and women, and pastoral workers, according to a bulletin from the Holy See Press Office.

By Michael Sinkewicz, Fox News – Trump’s comments come after two National Guard members were shot just blocks from the White House in what officials called a “targeted” attack. One of the guardsman, Sarah Beckstrom, 20, of West Virginia, has died, Trump announced earlier on Thursday… (a) second service member wounded in the attack, Andrew Wolfe, 24, is still “fighting for his life.”… The suspected gunman, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, is also in serious condition… (he) entered the U.S. legally in 2021 under humanitarian parole as part of the Biden administration’s Operation Allies Welcome in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

By Jarrett Stepman, The Daily Signal – “Affordability” has become the word of the month as American economic anxieties become a major point of political contention between Democrats and Republicans… Socialist Dem. Zohran Mamdani rode to victory in the NY City mayor’s race in part due to his promise to address the issue. Of course, he offered what socialists have been selling to the public for more than a century: free stuff, all paid for by the “rich,” the “billionaires,” or in Mamdani’s case, white neighborhoods in the city… But talk is one thing, reality is another.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Luke 21:34-36 – 34 “But take heed to yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a snare; 35 for it will come upon all who dwell upon the face of the whole earth. 36 But watch at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of man.”

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture – In the new Apostolic Letter In Unitate Fidei it is a pleasure to see Pope Leo doubling down on the importance of Christian unity precisely by not watering down the Catholic Faith, but rather by insisting on the absolute truth of the fundamental Catholic creed set forth by the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD. One of the primary purposes of that Creed was to deny the Arian view that Christ was not eternal like the Father, but somehow “made” by the Father at some point before the creation of the world.

By Victor Davis Hanson, The Daily Signal – So what’s happening, all you people in Arizona, Florida, Wyoming, Utah, you’re having like two to three kids, and four million people a year are joining you. And you people in blue states, like where I am, we’re having about 1.4 kids and nobody’s coming here. Everybody’s leaving. Our congressional districts, we’re going to surrender unless we cheat… We’re going to lose all of our congressional districts, and our economies are going to be backward… But we’ve got to keep doing it. We’ve got to keep getting left, left, left, left. Climate, climate, climate. …

By Isabella Childs, Live Action News – In 2022, when Jessica Williams was going through what she now calls “one of the hardest seasons of my life” in the midst of a divorce from her husband, she took the abortion pill after learning she was pregnant by another man… Williams took the first pill in the abortion pill regimen, mifepristone, after her husband demanded that she do so. Immediately confronted by the fact that her preborn child was dying, Williams turned to a pregnancy resource center for help.

By Daniel Payne, CNA – Multiple lawsuits allege that the Archdiocese of Chicago kept two priests in active ministry in spite of years of “mounting complaints” of child sexual abuse leveled against them… The suits, filed by the Chicago-based law firm Gould, Grieco, & Hensley, allege that archdiocesan officials allowed Father Daniel Holihan and Father John Curran to continue ministry “even after Church officials were aware of their history abusing children.”

One way to pursue gratitude is to pray a daily gratitude Examen for the season of Advent. Start or end each day by looking back over the previous 24 hours, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal the gifts that have been given. Let each one gently bubble up to the surface of consciousness and write them down. In the beginning, these efforts might yield items such as being thankful that it’s eggnog time again. That’s fine. Increasing gratitude for less secular gifts will emerge: For being able to go to Daily Mass today… For the ability to help a family in need through the parish Giving Tree …

By Josh Hammer, The American Spectator – This holiday season, I’m thankful for my family — above all, my wife and our beautiful daughter, who is about to turn 1. I’m thankful for having found in recent years a resurgent commitment to the ancient religion of my forefathers. I’m thankful for my wonderful friends, who have helped serve as a stabilizing counter to the destructive political and social maladies of the day — some conspiratorial elements of which have targeted me personally. And I’m thankful to live in what still is, warts and all, the greatest country in the history of mankind.

By Franciscan Media – Clement of Rome was the third successor of Saint Peter, reigning as pope during the last decade of the first century. He’s known as one of the Church’s five “Apostolic Fathers,” those who provided a direct link between the Apostles and later generations of Church Fathers… Clement’s First Epistle to the Corinthians was preserved and widely read in the early Church. …

By Peter Wolfgang, Catholic Culture – Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Every September 8th my family and I gather together to commemorate America’s first thanksgiving, the Mass celebrated in Florida in 1565 expressing gratitude to almighty God that the Spanish crown claimed the future sunshine state for God and country… There is no widespread tradition of celebrating the 1565 Mass at St. Augustine, Florida as America’s first Thanksgiving… But there is a Catholic tradition of complaining about it on Facebook… The Catholics beat the Pilgrims to the New World, Catholics should commemorate the 1565 Mass in Florida as the first Thanksgiving in America instead of the 1621 Pilgrim feast with the Indians in Massachusetts, and so forth.

John Daniel Davidson, Sr. Editor, The Federalist – So let’s have no more nonsense about immigrants “founding America” or rapturous declamations about the blending of many different cultures in our founding. The English and the English alone created America, as only they could have done. Four centuries later, we are still profoundly indebted to the English folkways that first shaped and later defined our distinct American culture and way of life. It is our sacred patrimony, for which we Americans should be profoundly grateful this Thanksgiving.

By Charles Coulombe, Crisis Magazine – But we must place the National Socialists in their correct place historically and ideologically. Theirs was a movement not of the Right, but of the Left. “Brown-Shirted Bolsheviks” was a not inaccurate summation of them. It must also be insisted upon that—until the invasion of Russia in 1941—the Communists of each country invaded by Germany and its allies collaborated with the occupiers. It was only with the German attack on the Soviet Motherland that the local Communists suddenly decided they were really patriots and joined the resistance—then attempting to dominate it.

By Reid Smith, The American Conservative – An imperfect peace is better than a worsening war… What has been lost in the noise surrounding the Trump administration’s proposed peace plan is the recognition that the bargain at hand accomplishes the primary objective: It ends the war. Moreover, it preserves a sovereign Ukrainian state and establishes a U.S.-backed security guarantee reflecting the strongest commitment Kiev might expect to receive from the West. …