Catholic Church

By Paul Kengor, EWTN News - In October 1997, as Pope John Paul II prepared for a historic visit to Fidel Castro’s Cuba, a once devoutly Catholic country that communists had subjected to a nasty war on religion, Vatican aides found a hidden microphone in the parish house where the Pope was scheduled to stay. The Vatican team made the discovery once it had gone ahead to Havana to help plan for the pontiff’s Jan. 21-25, 1998, visit... According to the Madrid-based newspaper El Pais, Vatican aides were outraged by this betrayal and threatened to cancel the trip. The Polish Pope, for his part, was no doubt unsurprised. He had long dealt with far worse mischief from communists in his homeland.

By Fr. Nnamdi Moneme, OMV, Catholic Exchange - In her memoirs, Ways of Divine Love, Sister Josefa Menendez (1890-1923) describes one of her visions in words that challenge the way that we look at our miseries in life. Jesus had said to her, “Thy misery draws me to thee… The void and misery in thee are as magnets that attract my love to thee. Yield not to discouragement, for my mercy is honored in thy infirmity.” This saint responded to Jesus with a complete and confident surrender of her misery to the Savior.

By Austin Ruse, Crisis Magazine - The great economist and social critic Thomas Sowell pointed out years ago that the ethnic groups that grew to success the slowest in American history were those that tied themselves most closely to advancement through government... Sowell argues that with the welfare state that grew from the Great Society and the War on Poverty that black Americans, too, tied themselves to advancement through government and that this has profoundly harmed the black family.