By Msgr. Charles Pope – They have been called by many names: the prayer of the faithful, the general intercessions, and now most commonly the universal prayers… But they are not the prayers of the faithful since they are usually written by an individual. They are really general intercessions, since they are often rather specific, and they are not universal in the sense that they are, by necessity, particular. ….

By John-Henry Westen, LifeSiteNews – Is Pope Francis the very first pro-trans pope?.. Pope Francis called a group of grown men “girls” — all because they have chosen to self-identify as women.. Pope Francis also supports the “nun of the trans” in a shocking sign of support for the transgender agenda.. The weaponizing of orthodox teaching to smuggle the LGBT lobby into the Church will have catastrophic results if faithful Catholics do not sound the alarm now…

By Mark Judge, The Stream – I was wrong. I thought communism was dead… Communism in fact never died, despite the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In fact, communism may be the instrument that God uses to humiliate and purge a wicked, godless and liberal West… How I was so wrong about communism became clear when I recently read Arch. Fulton Sheen’s Communism and the Conscience of the West ….

By Tom Renz, Esq., America Out Loud – What is courage?… we have to understand that courage is not the absence of fear; rather, courage is the willingness to stand in the face of fear. Courage cannot exist absent fear, and so courage is an inherently difficult trait to demonstrate. It is only when we stand strong in the face of difficulties, the unknown, adversity, or pain that we show courage ….

By W. Aaron Vandiver, Children’s Health Defense – In Feb. 2022, 1,140 organizations sent Pres. Biden a letter urging him to declare a “climate emergency.” A group of U.S. Senators did the same, in October 2022, and a House bill, introduced in 2021, also called on the president to “declare a national climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act.”… Biden has … (so far) has declined, to the disappointment of many progressives… The United Nations (U.N.) has urged all countries to declare a climate emergency.

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture – The logical follow-up to my commentary last Friday on Tragi-comic news is a more serious consideration of the intractability of evil. For if we are honest, we understand that the sheer weight of evil in this world cannot be thrown off by human means. We will beat our heads against the proverbial wall of evil only to find that, when we have finished, we have not managed to visibly reduce the amount of evil in the world. At best we can suggest to ourselves that there would have been even more evil if we hadn’t tried.

By  Fr. Shenan J. Boquet, Human Life International – A few weeks ago, the prime minister of Japan had a startling message for his citizens. The country, said Fumio Kishida during a speech to lawmakers, is “on the brink of not being able to maintain social functions.”… The reason for this dire warning? The country’s rock-bottom birth rate… the nation’s measly birth rate of 1.3 children born per women, far below the replacement rate of about 2.1 children per woman.

By Doreen Abi Raad, Detroit Catholic – It seemed that 12 years of a bloody war should have been enough tragedy for the people of Aleppo and other Syrian cities. But in the early hours of Feb. 6, a devastating earthquake struck northwestern Syria, killing 1,500 as of 5 a.m. Eastern on Feb. 7… In southern Turkey and Syria combined, the death toll reached more than 5,000 as of early morning hours on Tuesday and is expected to rise as people are still trapped under the rubble.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – Joe Biden celebrated abortion on Tuesday night during his State of the Union address — and trashed pro-life states that are working hard to protect babies from abortions… “Congress must restore the right the Supreme Court took away last year and codify Roe v. Wade to protect every woman’s constitutional right to choose,” Biden said. “The vice president and I are doing everything we can to protect access to reproductive health care and safeguard patient privacy.”

By Robert W. Shaffern, The Catholic Thing – Much intra-Catholic squabbling these days ignores the prescriptions of Catholic Social Teaching (CST), which is often thought to have originated with Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. Catholic writers, however, addressed issues of justice and equity from the beginning. The Acts of the Apostles records that the community cared for the needs of poor Christians, and the Church Fathers and medieval canonists further discussed how best to serve the needs of the unfortunate.

By John M. Grondelski, Crisis Magazine – As Catholics observe “National Marriage Week” on February 7-14, we should be concerned about a growing trend to separate marriage and parenthood—because it is fundamentally reshaping the cultural idea of marriage in ways foreign to Catholic thought… Yes, Catholic theology admits that marriage and parenthood are conceptually separate realities. Yes, post-menopausal septuagenarians can marry validly.

By Mia Ashton, The Post Millennial – Josh Alexander, 16, has not been permitted to attend St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Renfrew, Ontario since last November when he organized a protest in support of the right of female students to have single-sex washrooms after two girls had confided in him that they were uncomfortable sharing spaces with trans-identified male students.

By Dr. Joel S. Hirschhorn, America Out Loud – Critical thinking is used to see the big picture that has profound importance… Though I take pride in focusing on data, sometimes it is critical to step back and identify the big-picture generalization that tells the most important story. A story that the public needs to be made aware of so that it better understands all the corruption and propaganda that has created the highest level of misinformation from official sources.

By Michael Haynes, LifeSiteNews – Pope Francis has launched an education center in the traditional Papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo to promote the “ecological conversion”… Francis’ new initiative was announced in a press release from the governorate of the Vatican City State on February 2, which hailed the launch of the “Borgo Laudato Si” project. In the papal decree, Francis described the project as a “forum for confrontation” which would further his desire to promote an ecological style of spirituality, as outlined in Laudato Si.

By Ben Zeisloft, DailyWire – The document from Pfizer appeared to reference Walker as a current employee… “We are aware of and managing a recent incident where one of our colleagues was baited into conversation in a social situation and recorded without their knowledge,” the document said…