News

By John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist – In the days since Charlie Kirk’s assassination by a radical Antifa terrorist, a refrain has arisen in the corporate press and the political establishment that we must come together, lower the temperature, tone down the rhetoric, and condemn political violence on both sides. In order to have peace, they say, we have to have unity… But there can be no peace or unity without first telling the truth, and the truth is that both-sidesism, the polite fiction that the American left and right have a problem with political violence, is a damnable lie — and everyone peddling it is a moral coward.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Luke 7:31-35 – 31 “To what then shall I compare the men of this generation, and what are they like? 32 They are like children sitting in the market place and calling to one another, `We piped to you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.’ 33 For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine; and you say, `He has a demon.’ ….

By Elise Winland, CatholicVote – Utah prosecutors on Sept. 16 formally charged 22-year-old Tyler Robinson with aggravated murder in the assassination of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk… At a Sept. 16 press conference announcing the charges, Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray said his office will also seek the death penalty, citing the severity of the crime… “I do not take this decision lightly, and it is a decision I have made independently as county attorney based solely on the available evidence and circumstances and nature of the crime,” Gray said. “Because we are seeking the death penalty, the defendant will continue to be held without bail in the Utah County Jail.”

By Elise Winlandon, Catholic Vote – Israel has launched a long-threatened ground offensive into Gaza City Sept. 16 as part of what it calls “Operation Gideon’s Chariots II,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced… The IDF said the campaign aims to push Israeli troops deeper into the city and will “expand in line with the current situational assessment.”… Defense Minister Israel Katz declared on X that Israel would fight until Hamas was defeated and hostages were freed. …

By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing – In 1776, the year that America became independent (and San Francisco was founded), two Franciscan priests, Atanasio Dominguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante, traveled from what would become Santa Fe, New Mexico, through Arizona, Colorado, and Utah, aided at several points by native guides, until circumstances forced them to turn back in Orem, Utah, the very place where, last week, Charlie Kirk was murdered… Their mission, as strange as the path may seem to us today, was to find a shorter route from Santa Fe to the Franciscan mission in Monterrey, California – and no doubt to prepare the way for evangelization of native populations ….

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion company, is expanding its reach into selling trans hormones by instructing teenagers on evading parental consent and medical safeguards… That’s according to a recent workshop exposed by critics who warn it endangers vulnerable youth. The abortion organization, which operates nearly 600 centers nationwide, has positioned itself as the leading seller of cross-sex hormones for so-called gender transitions, treating 40,000 patients last year alone, with 40% aged 18 to 22.

By Diane Montagna, Substack – Pope Leo XIV is “holding Charlie Kirk and his family in prayer,” the Vatican confirmed today… Responding to inquiries from journalists, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said that during a meeting on Saturday with the new U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, Brian Burch, “the Pope confirmed that he is praying for Charlie Kirk, his wife, and his children.”… According to Bruni, the Pope also “expressed concern about political violence and spoke of the need to avoid rhetoric and exploitation that foster polarization rather than dialogue.” ….

By Dawn Beutner, Catholic World Report – He was one of the most brilliant men of his age, but he was a humble man and an exemplary priest who lived a virtuous and austere life… On September 17, 1621, the Cardinal-priest Robert Bellarmine died in Rome. Why did Pope Pius XI declare him a saint in 1930? And why did the same pope declare him a Doctor of the Church in 1931?… Bellarmine was born into a noble but relatively poor family in Montepulciano, Italy. When he was only twelve years old, his uncle was elected pope and became Pope Marcellus II.

By Matthew McDonald, The National Catholic Register – Toledo Bishop Daniel Thomas’ new document ‘The Body Reveals the Person’ rejects gender transitioning, but not the gender transitioner… Attempting to change gender is “medically assisted self-harm” and should be rejected, but people experiencing pain over gender identity should know that God loves them and wants to bring them to himself through their sufferings, an Ohio bishop says in a new document.

By John M. Grondelski, First Things – According to Washington auxiliary bishop Roy Campbell, Catholics should stand up for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—DEI—because DEI also means “God” (as in, Dei)… That insulting association of the Divine Name with a divisive political social policy appeared in an essay the USCCB accidentally published on its website in recent days. It has since been taken down. According to The Pillar, the USCCB has not yet officially sanctioned the essay. It “is a draft of a personal reflection from Bishop Campbell that is yet to be discussed and given to a definitive publication plan” ….

By Jerry Dunleavy, Just the News – A useful picture of the domestic terrorism threat in America in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk has not yet come into focus, as the actual threat-scape has been muddled by the politicization of intelligence and by an overbroad use of the phrase “domestic terrorism.”… A review of the Biden administration’s application of the phrase shows that the phrase was used as a justification for targeting January 6 rioters, parents concerned about what their children were being taught in schools, and a wildly uneven treatment of those groups when compared to the widespread violence and destruction caused by Antifa and other progressive groups.

By Franciscan Media, September 17 – When Saint Robert Bellarmine was ordained in 1570, the study of Church history and the fathers of the Church was in a sad state of neglect. A promising scholar from his youth in Tuscany, he devoted his energy to these two subjects, as well as to Scripture, in order to systematize Church doctrine against the attacks of the Protestant Reformers. He was the first Jesuit to become a professor at Louvain.

By Janet E. Smith, Crisis Magazine – Charlie Kirk inspired millions of young people around the world. His assassination has only galvanized the movement that he lived and ultimately died for… I have spent hours reading tributes to Charlie Kirk and watching his videos. I have avoided as much as possible the unbelievable, hate-filled responses that rejoice in his death… If you can’t see that Charlie Kirk’s life was animated by love, I pity you. You do not have eyes to see or ears to hear. You are allowing the hate-filled to shape your views.

By Amira Abuzeid, CNA Staff – In what some are calling “the Charlie Kirk effect,” people across the nation, including many college students who are not ordinarily churchgoers, have decided to go to church since the assassination last week of the conservative Christian political activist Charlie Kirk… Matt Zerrusen, co-founder of Newman Ministry, a Catholic nonprofit that operates on about 250 campuses nationwide, told CNA he has spoken with Catholic college ministry leaders throughout the country over the last few days, and “every one of them told me they’ve seen bigger crowds” at Masses and lots of people “they’ve never seen before.”

By Melissa O’Rourke, LifeNews – Over a quarter of young voters believe America is “better off” following the killing of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, according to a new survey… The Napolitan News Service poll found that a staggering 26% of those aged 18 to 34 answered “yes” to the question: “While it is always difficult to wish ill of another human being, is America better off now that Charlie Kirk has been killed?” Among Democrats, 24% also responded affirmatively.

By Carmelite Sisters, (By Sister Emma Luz, OCD),Integrated Catholic Life – Mother Luisita wrote in her spiritual notes: “What a great joy to have in my company, to possess, to have as my own, Jesus Himself! Who could ever snatch my Jesus from me?”… If we look at this passage from Jesus’ viewpoint, we get a glimpse into the heart of God and His desire. For our desire of God is a pale flicker to the infinite flame of God’s love pursuing us. The Song of Songs has two images, among many others, that describe God’s desire very powerfully. …

By Michael Frigon, Crisis Magazine – Yet, the Soviets were not interested in peace, as they were convinced that they could defeat the West and its ideology. … The turning point came when Ronald Reagan took office in 1981. For two years, Reagan and his national security advisors worked to put his doctrine of “we win, they lose” into an actual strategy. The result was NSDD 75 on “U.S. Relations with the U.S.S.R.”—a short 10-page policy directive outlining how the United States would not just contain Soviet expansion but reverse it completely until a U.S. victory was achieved.

By Fr. Nnamdi Moneme, OMV, Catholic Exchange – A woman recently shared with me how she had prepared everything for her funeral so that she would not be a burden to her relatives when she passed away. She had a brand-new urn for her cremains, a favorite spot in her yard for her resting place, and even the chapel where the funeral Mass would be held… When I asked her if she was also preparing her soul for heaven, her blank stare showed me that she had not thought deeply of that at all. ….

By Paul Seaton, Catholic World Report – Western civilization, Islam, and secular elites formed the triangle that I began to develop in the first installment of this alarum. My thesis is that this precious thing, Western civilization, to which we all owe an unpayable debt of pietās, is under attack from hostile forces… In the first installment, I drew from eminent thinkers (especially but not solely Catholic) to highlight essential components of Western civilization, elements that distinguish it from other civilizations and cultures, elements that elevate man and allow him to live freely and well according to his nature and divinely given vocation.

By Rod Dreher, European Conservative – One of the key conditions that King’s College professor David Betz says leads to civil war: an elite radically disconnected from the masses… Civil war is coming,” David Betz told a Budapest audience on Thursday night. And later: “Sorry, but I don’t think there is a peaceful solution at this time.”… Betz should know. The professor is head of the war studies department at King’s College London and is an academic expert in civil war. For years he has been writing that all the conditions for civil war to break out have been met in most Western countries; all that is needed is a spark.

By Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr., Mises Wire – Is it too much to say that since the French Revolution, the left has been the source of virtually all political evils, and continues to be so in our day?… There can be no doubt that great cruelty and violence can be and have been inflicted in the name of preserving the existing order… But when we compare even the worst enormities of the more distant past with the leftist totalitarian revolutions and total wars of the twentieth centuries, they are in general a mere blip. ….

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky, Catholic Culture – The crucifix affixed above the altar signifies that the Sacrifice of the Mass participates in the one Sacrifice of Jesus for our redemption. The Cross defines our worship and provides the path to salvation. But the roadmaps of redemption and salvation vary in the post-Reformation era of fragmented Christianity…. Catholic teaching holds that Original Sin wounded but did not destroy human nature. For our redemption, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He confronted evil, suffered and died for us, and overcame sin, suffering, and death in the glorious Resurrection.

By Beth Brelje, The Federalist – Ilhan Omar’s comments are simply the latest in a long string of outrageous remarks — and House Republicans have done virtually nothing to hold her accountable… House Speaker Mike Johnson won’t commit to taking any disciplinary action against Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar for her comments blaming Charlie Kirk for his own assassination, despite his power to strip her of committee assignments or put forward a resolution calling for her expulsion from Congress.

By Michael Hichborn, Lepanto Institute – The heretical Association of US Catholic Priests (AUSCP) announced earlier this year that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) approached the Association, asking it to host a virtual consultation on the USCCB’s Laity Document. Public materials describe the event as a joint effort between AUSCP and the USCCB, presenting it as a continuation of synodal engagement.

By Craig Bannister, MRC Newsbusters – While he dearly wants unity in America, there cannot be unity with people who condone – even celebrate – political violence, such as the assassination of conservative advocate Charlie Kirk, Vice President JD Vance declared Monday… Hosting an episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show” in wake of Kirk’s assassination, Vice President Vance said that there can be no unity with those who are violently opposed to unity: “I am desperate for our country to be united in condemnation of the actions and the ideas that killed my friend. I want it so badly. …

By Zelda Caldwell, National Catholic Register – The vice president, a close friend of Charlie Kirk, sat in as guest host of Kirk’s podcast Monday… While serving as the guest host of Charlie Kirk’s podcast Monday, Vice President JD Vance vowed that the Trump administration will seek to “dismantle” left-wing organizations that he said promoted the violence that led to the conservative activist’s assassination last week… “Charlie was gunned down in broad daylight, and well-funded institutions of the Left lied about what he said so as to justify his murder. This is soulless and evil,” Vance said.

Fr. Nick VanDenBroke, Courageous Clergy, Youtube, Sep 14, 2025 – Fr. Nick VanDenBroke, Pastor of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Lonsdale, Minnesota offered this heartfelt homily the weekend after the death of Charlie Kirk.

By Bishop Joseph E. Strickland, Bishop Emeritus, Pillars of Faith – The world has been shaken in recent days by the sudden and tragic death of Charlie Kirk. Although he was not Catholic, his boldness and courage, his willingness to stand publicly against a culture of lies, and his evident desire to move toward the truth struck a chord across the nation and the world. His wife is a daughter of the Catholic Church, and his death has brought sorrow to countless souls, Catholic and non-Catholic alike… We pray for the repose of his soul, for consolation for his wife and family, and for healing for the many who feel this loss deeply. Yet we must also recognize: this moment is more than a passing news story. It is a spiritual thunderclap.

Franciscan Media, September 15 – For a while there were two feasts in honor of the Sorrowful Mother: one going back to the 15th century, the other to the 17th century. For a while both were celebrated by the universal Church: one on the Friday before Palm Sunday, the other in September… The principal biblical references to Mary’s sorrows are in Luke 2:35 and John 19:26-27. The Lucan passage is Simeon’s prediction about a sword piercing Mary’s soul; the Johannine passage relates Jesus’ words from the cross to Mary and to the beloved disciple.

By Carolyn McKinney, Crisis Magazine – The solution to the collapse of America under the weight of Cultural Marxism is found in the roadmap of Charlie Kirk’s life… The assassination of Charlie Kirk is not just a personal tragedy—it also marks the end of an era in America. For years, Charlie embodied the spirit of open debate and the free exchange of ideas. He believed that by reasoning together Americans could reach truth and consensus. But his death reveals something undeniable: the liberal order of neutrality and tolerance is dead.

By Jerry Dunleavy, Gelet Fragela and Steven Richards, Just the News – Amid the snow-capped mountains and Mormon churches of Utah, not far from where FBI agents continue to scour for more evidence in Charlie Kirk’s assassination, a self-described armed revolutionary group openly aligned with Cuba has risen up on the streets of one of America’s most conservative states… Armed Queers SLC says its mission is to train gay, queer and transgender people to arm themselves and to fight against capitalism. Although their purported Facebook page does not directly appear to encourage the use of firearms in their claimed mission, many of the images used depict firearms.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Luke 7:1-10 – 1 After he had ended all his sayings in the hearing of the people he entered Capernaum. 2 Now a centurion had a slave who was dear to him, who was sick and at the point of death. 3 When he heard of Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his slave. 4 And when they came to Jesus, they begged him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, 5 for he loves our nation, and he built us our synagogue.”6 And Jesus went with them. ….

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – The young man who allegedly assassinated a beloved pro-life conservative activist was himself a radical leftist who self-identified as Antifa… The 22-year-old man accused of fatally shooting pro-life conservative activist Charlie Kirk had scrawled “Hey fascist, catch” on a bullet casing recovered from the scene, law enforcement officials said Friday… The initial details about the shooter are painting the suspect as a radicalized leftist who turned against his staunchly Republican family.

By Complicit Clergy, Staff – Yesterday, we shared with you the Leftist ideologues at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) had published a document entitled “DEI Means God.”.  Today that document mysteriously disappeared from the USCCB website… Good thing we archived both a copy of the webpage as well as the document before the USCCB tried to cover their tracks.  We strongly encourage you to read the document and gauge the mindset of the U.S. bishops for yourself.

By S.A. McCarthy, The American Spectator – Bishops are successors to the Apostles, they are tasked with serving as shepherds. Wolves are devouring the flock — what else can we call it when a transgender-identified man imagines himself as a demon every time he sees his reflection in the mirror and proceeds to gun down children praying at Mass? Wolves are devouring the flock. Where are our shepherds? Where are our spiritual fathers? Have they abandoned their sons and daughters? When Antifa snipers come for you and me for preaching the Gospel, when transgender terrorists try to take our lives for daring to go to Mass, where will our shepherds be? Perhaps they’ll be forming a third anti-racism committee.

By John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist – The left has always been a violent, revolutionary movement, incompatible with ordered liberty. Politics isn’t possible with the left… “The left is being whipped into a violent frenzy. Any setback, whether losing an election or losing a court case, justifies a maximally violent response,” Kirk said. “This is the natural outgrowth of left-wing protest culture tolerating violence and mayhem for years on end. The cowardice of local prosecutors and school officials have turned the left into a ticking time bomb.”

By Daniel B. Gallagher, The Catholic Thing – Surrounded by a culture of mounting political violence, we all must feel at least a modicum of anger. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t… Utah Governor Spencer Cox is to be commended for admitting it on Friday: “Over the last 48 hours, I have been as angry as I have ever been. . .and as anger pushed me to the brink, it was actually Charlie (Kirk)’s words that pulled me back. . . .Charlie said, ‘When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence.’”

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – The terms “conservative” and “liberal” are always somewhat misleading when applied to Catholic controversies. But in the absence of more accurate alternatives (which would require a fair amount of explanation), they provide a simple way to summarize the tensions that have beset that Catholic Church in the years since Vatican II. By 1995, when the Hitchcock essay appeared, the “conservative” Catholics—those devoted to the defense of Church doctrines and disciplines—had suffered through three decades of tumultuous change, while the “liberals”—those pressing for more dramatic change—were pressing their advantage.

By Thomas More Society, LifeNews – One such story is that of Ashley, a young woman who found herself at a difficult crossroads, overwhelmed and uncertain as the father of her child pressured her to have an abortion against her will… She was told by abortion facility staff that her decision to take the abortion pill was final—that there was no way to save her baby despite her immediate regret. “I felt trapped, like I had no options left,” Ashley later recalled.

Catholic Vote – The wife of the slain Charlie Kirk addressed the nation Friday night for the first time since her husband’s assassination… In the 16-minute speech, Erika Kirk opened by expressing profound gratitude to law enforcement, first responders, and the Turning Point USA team for their bravery and support… She honored Charlie’s life, describing him as a devoted husband, father, patriot, and man of God. Erika recalled his unwavering love for their family, his dedication to his faith, and his mission to revive the American family through Turning Point USA, which Charlie founded.

By Elise Winland, Catholic Vote – President Donald Trump said Sept. 12 he plans to deploy the National Guard to Memphis, Tennessee, to address crime in the city… “We’re going to Memphis. … We’ll straighten that out.”… He added that he will send “the National Guard and anybody we need, and by the way, we’ll bring in the military too if we need it. But we’re going to straighten out the crime in these cities.”… The President said both Memphis Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat, and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, support the move. …

By Bishop Joseph E. Strickland, Bishop Emeritus – What happened at St. Peter’s Basilica last weekend cannot be met with silence. Before the eyes of the whole world, the Holy Door – the sacred symbol of repentance and conversion in this Jubilee Year – was profaned. Groups openly advancing the LGBTQ agenda, contrary to God’s created order, adorned in rainbow banners and celebrating their rebellion against God’s law… This was no mere “pilgrimage.” It was a mockery of God, a desecration of the Holy Door, and a public scandal permitted by the highest authorities of the Church. …

By Amanda Prestigiacomo, DailyWire – An emotional and fiery Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk, spoke out publicly for the first time since the assassination of her husband on Friday. She reflected on Charlie’s life and faith, and vowed to never let her husband’s mission end… Erika opened her remarks by thanking law enforcement and first responders for helping her husband after the shooting and capturing his assassin… The young mother said her husband “loved what he did” and thanked all of Charlie’s supporters. …

By Matt Kittle, The Federalist – After an intensive, multi-day manhunt, law enforcement officials on Friday said they had taken into custody conservative icon Charlie Kirk’s killer. Police assert 22-year-old Tyler Robinson “acted alone” in assassinating the Turning Point USA founder… But did he?.. Authorities said Robinson’s roommate shared with investigators the alleged cold-blooded killer’s communications on messaging app Discord. In them, the suspect discusses “a need to retrieve a rifle from a drop point, leaving the rifle in a bush, messages related to visually watching the area where a rifle was left, and a message referring to having left the rifle wrapped in a towel.”

By Staff, Complicit Clergy – Today the USCCB’s published a documented entitled “DEI Means God.” The document was authored by by Bishop Roy E. Campbell Jr., an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C… Campbell was ordained a bishop by Cardinal Donald Wuerl in 2017. Wuerl was later forced to resign in disgrace when he was implicated in the sexual abuse scandal cover-up in 2018… The DEI document appears to equate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to the nature of God.

By Scott Ventureyra, Crisis Magazine – Say their names: Iryna Zarutska and Charlie Kirk; they should be remembered not as footnotes but as innocent lives whose loss exposes the captivity of the West. Their deaths cry out for repentance, justice, and courage… Regardless of the prevalence of evil, we must be relentless in claiming the truth—the truth that every human life is sacred, that Christ is Lord, and that evil must be resisted… The hour is very, very late; but hope always endures. For while Satan captivates nations with atrocity after atrocity, Christ alone has conquered death. …

By S.A. McCarthy, LifeNews – President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are defunding scientific research that uses aborted fetal tissue. According to Breitbart News, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has still been funding 17 grants that use aborted fetal tissue for testing and research. Most of those programs were initiated under then-President Joe Biden but are scheduled to continue being funded through 2026. However, NIH told Breitbart News that the health agency will not renew the problematic grants.

By Jayd Henricks, The Catholic Thing – The assassination of Charlie Kirk was not just the killing of a brilliant young mind, a husband, and a father; it was an attempt to kill the truth. It was an attempt to kill a movement of young adults engaging in public discourse about the essential truths of humanity. And it was an attempt to kill civility… This is not to say that everything Charlie said was true; I don’t think that is the case for any of us. But Charlie Kirk engaged the arena of ideas more courageously, more robustly, more civilly, and with more faith than just about anyone in the public square today, which is why he had such a following among the youth. He was different. …

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland, Bishop Emeritus – Brothers and sisters, if God reveals His secrets to prophets, then we must listen – even if it startles us. Today, we must speak with urgency: what is unfolding in the life of the Church isn’t abstract – it’s real, immediate, and demands our vigilance.”… In December 2023, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued Fiducia supplicans, allowing priests to impart short, private blessings to individuals – even same-sex couples – so long as they aren’t blessing a union or relationship. Though the Church affirms she cannot bless sin, this ambiguity forces faithful Catholics into confusion.

By Gayle Somers, Catholic Exchange – This Sunday’s feast, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, prompts us to marvel over how an instrument of shame, brutality, and defeat became the most glorious symbol in the cosmos. This means more than meditating on the meaning of the Cross for sinners like us, as fruitful as that would be.  No, the idea is to ponder the exaltation of the Cross, and there is a world of goodness for us as we answer this call.

By Thomas Gallatin, Patriot Post – When tragedy strikes, the most appropriate initial response is to pray. It’s an acknowledgement of our finiteness and reality that ultimately only God is truly in control; only God is sovereign over everything… It was and is fitting for us to pray, to call on God, after this most recent atrocity, the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Indeed, given that he was an outspoken Christian, that is precisely the response Kirk would have wanted.

By Mark Haas, Crisis Magazine – Veneration of Mary… One of the most striking examples of this came when Kirk addressed the question of Mary. He began with a frank admission: “Let me first say I think we as Protestants and evangelicals under venerate Mary. She was very important. She was a vessel for our Lord and Savior.”… This was not typical evangelical rhetoric. For centuries, Protestant communities have been cautious about Marian devotion, often fearing it detracts from Christ. But Kirk’s words revealed a humility—an openness to recognize that something had been lost.

By Nancy Flanders, LiveAction – Charlie Kirk believed ‘every human being… is sacred’… President Trump announced Kirk’s tragic death on Truth Social, writing, “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL…” … President Trump ordered the American flag to be flown at half-mast at the White House through Sunday in honor of Kirk.

By James Hitchcock, Catholic World Report – Today’s bishops may feel understandably discouraged at being asked to correct conditions, which have gone unchecked for three decades, and whose roots are often traceable to precisely the generation of allegedly strong prelates at the time of the Council. But this illustrates a homey principle—every problem, from a moral flaw to a leaky roof, merely gets worse if not addressed. Despite the claim that he is a rigidly counter-reforming pope, these problems are more intractable now than they were when John Paul II ascended the papal throne, and they will only continue to worsen if not addressed. …

By Kurt Etheridge, MRC TV – On a reflective episode of The Dana Show podcast, simulcast on The First, host Dana Loesch sat down with MRC President David Bozell to honor the extraordinary life and tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk. Bozell’s opening words captured the weight of the loss: “Charlie Kirk was certainly the best at creating an activist organization in the conservative movement. He was one of, if not the best, public speakers we had in our ranks. He combined all of that and started a podcast, and then started his family. He had this prolific career; he was the Rush Limbaugh of our time in that respect.”

Written by Charlie Kirk, the Spectator – When I was growing up, people often said British politics were where America’s would be in five, ten or 20 years. What this meant was that Britain was more to the left of America: more secular, more socially liberal, more environmentalist, more globalised. The assumption was that, over time, the left would always win out, so wherever Britain was now, America would soon be… I travelled to the United Kingdom in May to debate the students and faculty of Cambridge and Oxford Universities in large part because that old assumption is dead and gone. …

By Tessa Gervasini, Catholic News Agency – A new Pew Research Center study found that religion does not play a large role in how most Americans vote in U.S. elections… The research was conducted as part of Pew’s “About the American Trends Panel.” It was conducted May 5–11 and surveyed a representative sample of 8,937 U.S. adults. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 1.4 percentage points… Of the responding participants, 56% of Americans said religion shapes how they vote “a little” or “not at all” ….

By Franciscan Media – The Story of the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary… This feast is a counterpart to the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus; both have the possibility of uniting people easily divided on other matters…. The feast of the Most Holy Name of Mary began in Spain in 1513 and in 1671 was extended to all of Spain and the Kingdom of Naples. In 1683, John Sobieski, king of Poland, brought an army to the outskirts of Vienna to stop the advance of Muslim armies loyal to Mohammed IV of Constantinople. …

By Carolyn McKinney, Catholic Exchange – The assassination of Charlie Kirk has left me heartbroken. I grieve as an American, but most deeply as a mother. My sons—and their generation of young men—have lost a model of faith, courage, and goodness at a time when such examples are desperately needed… Charlie was not perfect, but he was faithful. His trust in Christ was clear to anyone who heard him speak. He longed for every person he met to come to know Jesus, and he spoke of that openly. This was not a private conviction tucked away behind his political work—it was the beating heart of everything he did. If my sons learn one thing from Charlie’s life, I hope it is this: to live unashamed of the Gospel, trusting Christ in all things.

By Ashlynn Lemos, LifeNews – Grief swept across our nation yesterday, September 10, with the tragic news that Charlie Kirk—conservative activist and co-founder of Turning Point USA—was assassinated at Utah Valley University… While speaking on his ‘The American Comeback’ tour, Charlie Kirk was fatally shot in the neck by a sniper around 12:20 p.m.. He had been sitting under his branded tent before a crowd of about 3,000 excited students and liberal protestors, preparing to answer a question about transgender shootings, when the attack occurred. …

By Eric Sammons, Crisis Magazine – Charlie Kirk’s job was to talk. He was far better at that skill than most people, and thousands upon thousands of people found what he said compelling. He talked mostly about controversial topics—although everything he advocated was mainstream opinion just two decades ago—always in a spirit of charity and constructive debate. He never advocated violence, nor did he ever demean those with whom he disagreed.

By Larry Chapp, Catholic World Report – Within various forms of religious relativism, there is a not-so-hidden soft totalitarianism that is swiftly moving into “harder” versions with devastating real-life consequences for anyone who dares to openly resist it… Way back in olden times, when I was still a professor of theology, one of the most ubiquitous attitudes amongst the students was that it does not matter which religion one practiced since “all religions are really saying the same thing in their essence”. ….

By CNA Deutsch, (CNA) – The Jesuit cardinal spoke in detail about his work on the Synod on Synodality. One concept that emerged during the process was “the image of a tent that needs to be expanded so that everyone can find space within it.” He said this image was “very well received by many” but “not at all in Africa.” There, people said, “a tent reminds us of refugee camps — we want to move beyond tents. In Africa, the preferred image was that of a family.”

By Michael Pakaluk, The Catholic Thing – Catholics who travel between the United States and Europe say that there is a noticeable difference in the Catholic cultures of the two.  The reports are anecdotal, of course. But this is what I see and hear: that on the American side, practicing Catholics seem more youthful and more hopeful; their culture is more vigorous; it is more outspoken; it has a bolder public presence.  It is looking towards the next generations.  It is building for the future. In short, it is more apostolic and evangelical.

By John Grondelski, National Catholic Register – Eleven nuns were shot by the Germans in a pine forest early in the morning of Aug. 1, 1943… Many religious were killed by the Nazis. What was so special about these nuns? Their story… Navahradak today is a town in Belarus about 70 miles east of the Polish border. Between the world wars, it was Nowogródek, a town in Poland. The 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact between Germany and its Soviet ally brought the Red Army to Nowogródek and the area annexed to the USSR.

By Kurt Etheridge, MRC TV – At just 31, Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, achieved what few have ever done in a lifetime. His trailblazing vision transformed college campuses, turning strongholds of leftist ideology into vibrant hubs of free speech, faith, and American principles. With infectious energy, he empowered countless young people, inspiring millions to embrace conservative values. As a devoted Christian, husband, and father of two, Charlie lived the values he preached, making our nation stronger with every word and action.

By Breccan F. Thies, The Federalist – In the world we live in now, there is no time to try to convince the left to ‘tone down’ their extreme rhetoric. They need to be treated like the domestic terrorists they are… Decades of extreme language, calling conservatives “Nazis,” claiming existential threats are around the corner in order to feed an assassination culture, and justifying the aftermath has brought a level of violence that is only one-sided: The left tries to murder or maim their political enemies.

By Bishop Michael Burbidge, Diocese of Arlington – As Americans, we are witnesses in just the past few weeks to a vicious pattern of political and social disorder. At Annunciation Catholic Parish in Minneapolis, the killings of Harper Moyski and Fletcher Merkel, two innocent children. In Charlotte, the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska. And now the political assassination of Charlie Kirk, known for his commitment to civil and rational discourse. We entrust each of these victims to God, our Heavenly Father and author of every human life, and his son Jesus Christ, the reason for our supernatural hope.

By John Mac Ghlionn, Crisis Magazine – Moral relativism, put simply, is the belief that right and wrong depend on personal opinion or cultural perspective. It sounds tolerant. It flatters our desire for autonomy. But it crumbles under the force of its own contradictions. If all morality is relative, then there can be no condemnation of anything, anywhere—not genocide, not slavery, not rape. If morality is just a cultural costume, then the Nazi uniform is no worse than a business suit, and the gulag is no worse than a schoolhouse. Relativism, when stripped of its disguises, defends nothing and permits everything.

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – Many faithful Catholics were surprised and dismayed to learn that Pope Leo had met with Father James Martin, SJ, in a private audience last week. I share their dismay. But not their surprise… We all knew, from the moment he was elected, that Pope Leo XIV would not repudiate the policies of his predecessor. He had worked closely with Pope Francis, who appointed him as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. By all accounts their relationship was friendly, with not a hint of conflict. While some of us might have wished for a new Pontiff who would immediately announce a series of policy changes, that was never in the cards.

By Thomas Gallatin, Patriot Post – The Democrats and the Left are losing Gen Z, in part due to low birthrates among progressives. Meanwhile, conservatives are simply having more babies…. The Great Replacement may be regarded as a white supremacist conspiracy theory regarding the concerted effort by left-wing elites to enact racial policies to replace majority white populations. There is, ironically, an actual ideological replacement occurring generationally in both the U.S. and Europe.

By Stephen P. White, The Catholic Thing – Fifteen years ago this month, Pope Benedict XVI became the first pope to make a state visit to Britain. (John Paul II made a pastoral visit in 1982.) It was an historic event, both for the Catholic Church in the UK and for the United Kingdom. Nearly five centuries after Henry VIII broke with the Church, here was the Bishop of Rome being received by the Queen at Holyroodhouse, welcomed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in Lambeth, and invited to address British leaders and dignitaries in Westminster Hall – the very place where St. Thomas More had been tried and condemned 475 years before.

By Shenan J. Boquet, Human Life International – “Two cities, then, have been created by two loves: that is, the earthly by a love that extends itself even to contempt of God, and the heavenly by love of God extending to contempt of self.” ― St. Augustine, The City of God… What role should the faith that Catholics hold play in their lives, including (or perhaps especially) outside of the time they spend in church?… In some ways, the answer to this question is obvious. Clearly, if Catholics believe what they say they believe, then their faith must be central to and affect everything they do…

By Bridget Sielicki, Live Action News – Texas lawmakers pass bill to stop flow of abortion pills into state… Lawmakers in the Texas Senate voted to pass Texas House Bill 7 (HB 7) this week during a second special session called by Governor Greg Abbott. The bill “prohibits the manufacture, distribution, mailing, transportation, delivery, and prescription of abortion-inducing pills for the purpose of obtaining an illegal abortion.” ….

By Christine Niles, Blogs at Stella Maris Media – The Catechism states on homosexuality: “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.” (2357)… It goes on to state: “Homosexual persons are called to chastity…”

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Luke 5:1-11 – 1 While the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. 2 And he saw two boats by the lake; but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. 3 Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. …

By Zach Jewell, DailyWire – “Now together as survivors we will confidentially compile the names we all know were regularly in the Epstein world …” … Victims of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein said Wednesday they plan to release their own client list after the Justice Department in July announced it found no evidence of one… At a rally on Capitol Hill, Epstein victim Lisa Phillips said she and other survivors of Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell plan to release a list of those involved in the abuse.

By Regis Martin, National Catholic – It was not until the dawn of the modern age, which in the popular mind signaled the rise of reason and progress, that pride ceased to be chief among the Seven Deadly Sins, despite its having long since been designated as such by Christian usage. In fact, the whole idea of sin itself as a grave affront to Almighty God was pretty much replaced by wrongdoing as an offense against others, especially the poor and marginalized. And, of course, if there is no God, the Deity having been retired in order to make room for Evolution, how can anyone possibly offend him?

By Kristan Hawkins, LifeNews – How’d you like to learn school administrators were secretly shuffling minors off for abortions – hiding everything from the kids’ parents – and paying for it all with YOUR tax dollars?… If pro-abortion Democrats seize total control of Virginia’s state government this November, this type of evil could become more and more common… Just check out this recent headline from The Washington Times explaining what public school teachers in Fairfax County have been doing.

Franciscan Media – Even as a child, Rose had a great desire to pray and to aid the poor. While still very young, she began a life of penance in her parents’ house. She was as generous to the poor as she was strict with herself. At the age of 10, she became a Secular Franciscan and soon began preaching in the streets about sin and the sufferings of Jesus. ..

By Kevin Wells, Crisis Magazine – For many whose homes cling to banks of the bayou—rock-ribbed Louisiana Baptists, staunch anti-papists, nonbelievers, and the long-ago fallen away—the bell echoes in the backcountry like a rooster’s crow announcing the dawn of something forgotten or pushed away. Long-closed doors to the trace of a memory begin to open and set in motion first steps back to their centuries-old Nova Scotian roots… And what a wonderful unfolding of grace this must be for Cajun-born Fr. Michael Champagne, the Religious Superior of the Community of Jesus Crucified, who, a decade ago, imagined how a Eucharistic procession down the heart of the bayou might move something deep in souls.

By Scott Ventureyra, Crisis Magazine – For decades, many assumed technology would accelerate secularization. People feared that artificial intelligence, in particular, would be the cold instrument of a transhumanist future, erasing the last remnants of faith. Yet, ironically, AI is now functioning as an apologist for God. A recent exchange between British atheist Alex O’Connor (“Cosmic Skeptic”) and ChatGPT, later reviewed by renowned Christian philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig on his Reasonable Faith podcast, demonstrated just how deeply the classical arguments for God are woven into our intellectual tradition.

By Fr. Kevin Drew, Catholic Exchange – “A gun is a tool, Marion, no better or no worse than any other tool; an axe, a shovel, or anything.” … A newly hired ranch-hand said that to a concerned mother after she objected to the man giving her young son some shooting lessons.  It’s from the 1953 movie Shane, where a silent and kindhearted man arrives seemingly out of nowhere and helps some poor farmers in their desperate fight against a greedy, land-hungry rancher.

By Breccan F. Thies, The Federalist – It does not matter if individuals become naturalized citizens of the United States, so long as they retain the citizenship from wherever they came, they should not be allowed to serve in the American government… Either they renounce their foreign citizenship, or stop serving in our government. And, it is more preferable that they self-deport if they feel strongly about keeping the other citizenship… As founder John Jay expressed in 1787, “Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government.”

By Thomas Gallatin, Patriot Post – In an apparent effort to address the frustration stemming from the firing of the CDC’s director, Trump calls for more transparency surrounding vaccine research… In the early months of the COVID pandemic, a pandemic that resulted in governmental leaders installing a number of draconian measures that, in many cases, were inflicting more damage to people’s lives than the pandemic itself, the promise of a vaccine to protect people against the virus was a welcome prospect.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Luke 4:38-4438 And he arose and left the synagogue, and entered Simon’s house. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was ill with a high fever, and they asked him about her. 39 And he stood over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her; and immediately she rose and served them. 40 Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any that were sick with various diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. 41 And demons also came out of many, crying, “You are the Son of God!”

By David G. Bonagura, Jr., Catholic World Report – The day before his elevation to the Sacred College of Cardinals was announced, Archbishop Francis George of Chicago, delivering an unprepared homily at a Saturday evening Mass, threw down a challenge to “liberal Catholicism.” He called it “an exhausted project” that “no longer gives life” to a Church it was so bent on critiquing. But just as quickly, he cautioned that the answer to this “turning point in the life of the Church” is “not to be found in a type of conservative Catholicism obsessed with particular practices and so sectarian in its outlook that it cannot serve as a sign of unity of all peoples in Christ.”

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – A late-term abortion business in the nation’s capital has stopped killing babies following a complaint against its abortionist… As LifeNews recently reported, a late-term abortionist who kill babies in Washington, D.C. was caught disoriented and wearing a full arm cast before he reportedly began doing risky late-term abortions… Local pro-life advocates who encountered and photographed Cesare Santangelo say he was in no condition to do surgical abortions. They said that if he did abortions that day, he would put women’s lives at risk.

By Francesca Pollio Fenton, Courtney Mares, Catholic News Agency – It’s official! On Sept. 7, Pope Leo XIV will canonize Blessed Carlo Acutis together with Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati as the first new saints of his pontificate. A gamer and computer coder who loved the Eucharist, Carlo Acutis will be the first millennial Catholic saint… So who is Blessed Carlo? Here’s what you need to know ….

By Brad Miner,  The Catholic Thing – The Holy Spirit moved in the conclave that elected St. John Paul II on October 16, 1978, to reward Poland for her suffering and courage, especially in the 20th century. And the pope, who raised hundreds to the altars, canonized many Polish people, among them Faustina Kowalska and Maximilian Kolbe… A new dramatic film Triumph of the Heart, about the great saint, written and directed by Anthony d’Ambrosio, is about to appear. It focuses on Kolbe’s two weeks of imprisonment with nine other men ….

Fr. Gerald E. Murray, National Catholic Register – In his new book, Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter Into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion and Sensitivity (HarperCollins), Jesuit Father James Martin has written a critique of the Catholic Church’s dealings with what he calls the “the LGBT community.”… What is the “LGBT community”? This acronym describes three groups of people: those who engage in, or feel drawn to engage in, homosexual activity (lesbians and gays); those who engage in, or feel drawn to engage in, both heterosexual and homosexual activity (bisexuals); and those persons who reject their sexual identity and think that they are in fact a member of the opposite sex (transsexuals/transgendered persons)… Is this, in fact, a community? Not really.

The Editors, National Catholic Register – There’s only one way Donald Trump’s second administration can be remembered as a pro-life presidency in a manner comparable to his widely praised first term in office… Then, he displayed impeccable pro-life credentials by fulfilling his crucial 2016 campaign promise to appoint U.S. Supreme Court justices who could be relied upon to help overturn the court’s disastrous Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationally — as they did via their support for the court’s landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision in 2022.

By Fr. Nick Ward, Crisis Magazine – I’ll never forget the day a student pointed a handgun at my dad’s face, back when he was principal of Bishop Neumann High School in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. I was too young to be a student, so I wasn’t there, but the drama of that terrible morning was burned into the collective memory of the whole Catholic community in that town for years to come… That may have been the first (or among the first) Catholic-school shootings in U.S. history. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the last. Many of us are now sadly familiar with the shooting that happened in Minneapolis, where a gunman fired multiple shots from varied weapons into a Catholic Church during a school Mass.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Luke 4:31-37 – 31 And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath; 32 and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word was with authority. 33 And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon; and he cried out with a loud voice, 34 “Ah! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” …

By Marie Tasy, LifeNews – Deep in our souls we grieve over the senseless and horrific tragedy that took place this week at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. Two young schoolchildren were killed and 15 others were wounded by an individual who was clearly in need of major spiritual and psychiatric help. We add our prayers for the many victims and their families who are suffering such uncomprehensible loss… We are grateful to the first responders and medical professionals whose bravery, compassion, and unwavering dedication brought comfort and care to the injured children and to the entire affected community.

By Matthew McKenna, Catholic Exchange – One of the many issues with IVF is that numerous extra embryos are made in order to increase the chances of having a successful birth.  When these additional embryos are produced, they get stored (frozen) or discarded (aborted).  In the United States alone, there are anywhere from one million to ten million frozen embryos in storage.  What are we to do with these frozen embryos? Within Catholic theology there is a debate on this issue, with faithful, orthodox Catholics on both sides.

By Joseph Reciniello, Catholic Exchange – … the closer we get to God, the thinner that veil becomes. And the thinner that veil becomes, the more joy and peace we have here on earth…. Despite what the world promises, the happiest people on earth (by far!) are those closest to God—not the rich, famous, or powerful. Why is that? Because God is pure love, and to be in His presence brings with it deep joy and peace. This is why the eyes of holy people shine the way that they do, and that is why Moses’ face became radiant when he stood in the presence of the Lord.

By  Leif Le Mahieu, DailyWire – “It is very important that the Drug Companies justify the success of their various Covid Drugs.”… President Donald Trump issued a Labor Day appeal for Pfizer to share its COVID-19 vaccine data with the CDC and the public immediately… Trump said on Truth Social that Pfizer had shown him impressive numbers on its COVID vaccine, but that they had not made them publicly available. His call for transparency comes after the White House fired CDC Director Susan Monarez last week following her clash with Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over the approval of COVID vaccines.

By Franciscan Media – These priests were victims of the French Revolution. Though their martyrdom spans a period of several years, they stand together in the Church’s memory because they all gave their lives for the same principle. In 1791, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy required all priests to take an oath which amounted to a denial of the faith. Each of these men refused and was executed.

By Cameron Arcand, Fox News – The DOJ is asking people to report illegal visa practices that could come at the expense of American workers… Citizens are being urged to flag “discriminatory” advertisements for jobs, especially ones that state that the employer prefers people on a seasonal or H-1B visa… “Are you an American citizen who has been harmed by inappropriate preferences for foreign workers, eg H1-B or other? Follow the link. It’s also a place to report human trafficking of immigrant workers, and Title VII employment discrimination” ….

By Randall Smith,  The Catholic Thing – Imagine you are applying for a highly competitive job, and someone says, “I can tell you how to be more competitive than 98 percent of the other applicants.”  Would you be interested?… Let’s say he adds: “It’s not hard, but you may not like it.”  Perhaps it’s something like wearing a coat and tie to your interview, and you hate wearing a coat and tie.  I’m with you on that, but if you really want the job, wouldn’t you make that little extra effort?  Or would you complain? “Why should I wear a coat and tie?  Coats and ties are stupid!  If they want a coat and tie, the heck with them.”

By Craig Bannister, MRC TV – In their efforts to smear President Donald Trump’s recent deployment of federal law enforcement to the Nation’s Capital, legacy media and liberal politicians have been promoting myths about the severity of crime in D.C. and the city’s need for help to keep its citizens safe… Four of these myths – and the facts refuting them – are presented below… Myth: Federal law enforcement is ignoring the high-crime areas of Washington, D.C. …

By Glenn T. Stanton, The Federalist – It has been a long feminist trope that marriage and motherhood are garbage chutes to misery for women. Feminist sociologist Jesse Bernard warned in her 1972 book, The Future of Marriage, “[M]arriage introduced such profound discontinuities into the lives of women as to constitute genuine emotional health hazards.”… It is no wonder that only 32 percent of women believe marriage and motherhood lead to fuller, happier lives for them. And 47 percent of single young women believe singleness is a more direct route to happiness for women than being wed.

By John Zmirak, The Stream – In previous centuries, when most people believed they had immortal souls that would be judged, a tyrant hungry for power would try to control the Church so he could dominate the many by seeming to imperil what they treasured most — their salvation. Some of the worst abuses in my own Catholic church saw popes and bishops deny whole cities the sacraments of marriage and even baptism over some papal land grab or squalid dynastic squabble… What do those hungry for power to bully their fellow citizens with now? The health of our bodies, the tenure we spend in this mortal coil. Instead of selling indulgences that supposedly speed our souls to Heaven, they press on us ever-newer medicines and untested vaccines ….

By Francesca Pollio Fenton, Catholic News Agency – The Sisters of Life have launched a new website providing resources and support for women considering an abortion, women seeking healing after having an abortion, and women whose children have an adverse prenatal diagnosis… Vis Center is named after the Latin word “vis,” which means “force” or “power.” “As women, we know that real power is unleashed when you feel listened to,” the website states.

By Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register – Cardinals Raymond Burke and Robert Sarah are among senior prelates urging greater participation in the First Saturday Devotion and are backing an initiative that originated in France, aimed at encouraging the faithful to take part… The Marian devotion, which is centered on making reparation for offenses and blasphemies against Mary’s Immaculate Heart that include denying her perpetual virginity or the Immaculate Conception, promises two immense graces for those who participate with true devotion and repentance …

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky, Catholic Culture – Jesus says, “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Lk. 14:11) Humility is a virtue that avoids arrogant self-estimation. Integral prayer helps us to know our limitations… The Gospel reveals Jesus’ ceaseless prayers to the Father. Jesus is meek and humble of heart (cf. Mt 11:29). Though Divine, He knew His limitations (sic!) in obedience to the Father. St. Paul explains (Philippians 2:6-11) ….

By Wendell Vinson, The Stream – But there’s another reason to honor every American who rolls up their sleeves to earn a paycheck. These contributions are the wellspring of our national prosperity. Ephesians 4:28 instructs us to work so we “may have something to share with anyone in need.” Work allows us to prosper, which enables us to be generous… That is why it is so important to take the opportunity Labor Day offers to spotlight how the work we each perform contributes to the common good.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 25:14-30 – 14 “For it will be as when a man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property; 15 to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them; and he made five talents more. 17 So also, he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. …

By Mary Mobley, The Daily Signal – Cakes could be set to make another Supreme Court appearance: On Tuesday, a Christian baker asked the court to decide whether the First Amendment protects her refusal to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding… This is similar to the 2017 case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado, in which the court held that the First Amendment protected a Christian baker’s right not to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding… Cathy Miller, the owner of Tastries Bakery in Bakersfield, California, argues the Masterpiece precedent applies in her case.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – A sharp exchange between the United States and China erupted at the UN this week, as China’s ambassador criticized Pres. Donald Trump’s pro-life policies, particularly his decision to defund the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)… The confrontation highlighted deepening tensions over global abortion policies and the U.S. commitment to halting taxpayer funding for organizations linked to abortion…

By Gayle Somers, Catholic Exchange – On a Sabbath Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing Him carefully. ( Lk. 14:1, 7-14)… In just one sentence, St. Luke communicates so much of the tone of this dinner party, doesn’t he?  Immediately, we sense that it was not an invitation inspired by cordial friendship.  The “leading Pharisee” and his friends seem to be hoping for Jesus to make a misstep.  …

By Elise Winland, Catholic Vote – FBI Director Kash Patel said Aug. 28 the gunman behind the tragic shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis left a manifesto and other evidence showing the attack was driven in part by anti-Catholic ideology… The shooter, 23-year-old Robert “Robin” Westman, opened fire during morning Mass Aug. 27, killing two children and wounding 17 other victims before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound… Westman, who identified as “transgender,” legally changed his name from Robert to Robin in 2020 after telling a Minnesota court he identified as female, according to the New York Post.

By Matthew McDonald, Jonah McKeown, National Catholic Register – An apostolate rooted in an ancient Church tradition is training Catholic men today to protect parishes and parishioners… Do Catholic churches need to provide more security?… That question is on many minds in the aftermath of a mass shooting of schoolchildren during a Mass at a parish church in Minneapolis on Wednesday…. One group in Arizona has been training Catholic men to provide security for their parishes for about five years.

By Bridget Sielicki, Live Action News – In a new report, a senior United Nations official is calling for a ban on all forms of surrogacy, detailing the many ways in which the practice is exploitative and promotes violence against women and girls… Key Takeaways: A report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur calls for an end to all surrogacy… The report will be presented to the UN General Assembly in October… The report details many of the ways in which surrogacy exploits women and girls.

By Felix Miller, Catholic Vote – An anonymous member of Sacred Heart Seminary’s faculty has written an open letter to the seminary’s board of trustees arguing that Archbishop Edward Weisenburger’s sudden firings of three longtime professors violated the school’s faculty handbook… “These dismissals directly violate several provisions of the Faculty Handbook (attached), the document adopted by the Board of Trustees to govern the relationship between the seminary and its faculty, which functions as part of each faculty member’s contract”

By Shawn Fleetwood, The Federalist – In a landmark case before the U.S. Supreme Court, the state of Louisiana has asked the justices to definitively declare the consideration of race in the redistricting process to be unconstitutional… “Our Constitution prohibits the sorting of Americans into voting districts based on their skin color — and Louisiana wants no part of that abhorrent system,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a Wednesday statement.

By Joy Pullmann, The Federalist – The New York Post published excerpts of the shooter’s journal posted on YouTube that include a drawing of him communing with a Satanic figure in a mirror. As I’ve written before, Satan-worshippers can be startlingly more direct than many Christians about the connections between their spiritual and political beliefs… This image is yet another striking testimony — from the dark side! — about the connections between queer ideology and the demonic. So are passages in the shooter’s journal that read as if they came straight out of the mouth of a demon: “I also love when kids get shot, I love to see kids get torn apart.” Pictures of his arsenal show a gun magazine inscribed with the words: “Where is your God?”

By Kimberlyn Schwartz, LifeNews – The Texas House of Representatives passed a major Pro-Life bill Thursday aimed at stopping mail-order abortion pills… The Woman and Child Protection Act (HB 7 by Rep. Jeff Leach, sponsored by Sen. Bryan Hughes) will head to the Senate for final approval next week… Chemical abortions are the biggest threat to preborn babies today. Abortion businesses are closing brick-and-mortar facilities but shifting their tactics online and underground. Activists send deadly pills into Texas illegally from other states and countries—to the tune of at least 19,000 orders of abortion drugs each year.

By Charles A. Coulombe, OnePeterFive – As we have seen American Exceptionalism dissolve into Wokery, perhaps we can learn at the very least to look at an alternative that worked very well for a long time, and was in many ways more Catholic than our own – and which has dissolved in part to our long-term influence.  One thing is certain: if Canada is to survive for a great deal longer, she needs to revive the Faith that made her once, and can make her great again. …

By Regis Martin, Crisis Magazine – Have we still got a Christian consensus around which Americans of every possible persuasion can rally round? A public philosophy, that is, whose strength and wisdom continue to inspire support? And if so, what is the core principle that binds us together as a people? It is, I would argue, the belief that God—not doctors or lawyers or politicians—is the Author of life and that we are its custodians and shepherds. …

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture – Brevity as the soul of wit… Perhaps the greater miracle, where scholars and especially philosophers are concerned, is that this book is also refreshingly brief. I myself am a past master at wearing out my welcome when expounding on any topic. Many of my own readers have asked me why I couldn’t I have said what I wanted to say in half the space. With Michael Pakaluk, you might occasionally wonder why some particular aspect of reality caught his attention at all, but you will never wonder why it took him too many words to offer his insight.

Franciscan Media – Born in northern France during the French Revolution—a time when congregations of women and men religious were being suppressed by the national government, Jeanne would eventually be highly praised in the French academy for her community’s compassionate care of elderly poor people.

By Dr. R. Jared Staudt, Catholic World Report – Despite hardships, I have always felt at home in the Church, and would answer any difficulty along with Peter, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68)… St. Paul certainly could not boast about his conversion. He didn’t read his way into the Church. He wasn’t compelled by the witness of charity. He was knocked off his proverbial horse on the way to lock up Christians in prison. It was grace.

By Joannie Watson, Integrated Catholic Life – Weakness versus power, failure versus victory. The world would tell us a different story than Jesus does. But today we celebrate that God’s ways are not our ways. Where the world sees weakness and suffering and death, we see triumph and victory… Today we celebrate one of John the Baptist’s two feasts. John is one of the few people whose births we celebrate (June 24). We only celebrate those who were born without original sin: Jesus, Our Lady, and John, whom tradition holds was cleansed of original sin at the Visitation. Instead, for most saints, we celebrate the day of their birth into heavenly glory: the day of their death.

By Nate Jackson, Patriot Post – While the Leftmedia searches for a motive, the “transgender” killer was abundantly clear about his mental illness, manifesting as hatred for Christians, Jews, and Donald Trump… As school has begun across the country, there have been numerous hoax calls about active shooters on campus. That’s a sick way to get entertainment, but sicker still is when the shooting is real, as it was yesterday morning at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 25:1-13 – 1 “Then the kingdom of heaven shall be compared to ten maidens who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; 4 but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5 As the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a cry, `Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ …t.’

By Franciscan Media – The Story of the Martyrdom of John the Baptist: The drunken oath of a king with a shallow sense of honor, a seductive dance and the hateful heart of a queen combined to bring about the martyrdom of John the Baptist. The greatest of prophets suffered the fate of so many Old Testament prophets before him: rejection and martyrdom. The “voice crying in the desert” did not hesitate to accuse the guilty, did not hesitate to speak the truth. But why? What possesses a man that he would give up his very life?

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – Pope Leo XIV has issued a clarion call to Catholic politicians worldwide, urging them to align their actions with the Church’s teachings on the sanctity of life… This new message follows on the heels of a recent pro-life message where the Pope emphasized the need to reject “voices of death” and embrace a culture of life… Pope Leo firmly rejected the false notion of Catholic politicians saying they are “personally pro-life” but voting for abortion: “There is no division within the personality of a public figure: there is not on one side the politician, and on the other the Christian.”

By Hélène de Lauzun, The European Conservative – In July, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, presented a report stating that “the practice of surrogacy is characterised by exploitation and violence against women and children, including girls”… This is the first time that an international statement has been made on this sensitive subject in such unequivocal terms… The Casablanca Declaration, an international organisation bringing together associations and experts campaigning for the abolition of surrogacy worldwide, welcomed the report through its spokesman, Olivia Maurel, who was herself born through surrogacy and has made its universal and definitive abolition her cause. 

By David G Bonagura, Jr., The Catholic Thing – Our culture proposes that “to have it all” is to be happy. Bill may not have it all, but he has more than John. Nevertheless, more adults today choose to imitate John – they refuse to trust what they cannot see with their eyes. Unwillingness to trust is fatal to life and to relationships. It’s no wonder, then, why younger generations report crippling anxieties and depression… In the Nicene Creed we declare our belief in all things, visible and invisible. When we learn to trust that the invisible things of God are more real than the visible, we will be on the road to happiness. Which is to say, we will be on the road of salvation in Christ.

By Brett Samuels, The Hill – The FBI is investigating  Wednesday’s shooting in Minnesota as an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime targeting Catholics, Director Kash Patel said… Patel confirmed the suspected shooter was identified as Robin Westman, who Patel and other top administration officials said identified as transgender… “The shooter has been identified as Robin Westman, a male born as Robert Westman,” Patel posted on social platform X. “The FBI will continue to provide updates on our ongoing investigation with the public as we are able.”

By Nicolás de Cárdenas, ACI Prensa Staff – Pope Leo XIV on Thursday encouraged Catholic politicians to live coherently as Christians and follow the Gospel, even when performing their public duties in a secular polity… During an Aug. 28 meeting with a delegation of political representatives and civic leaders from the Diocese of Créteil, France, accompanied by Bishop Dominique Blanchet, the Holy Father stated that “a more just, more human, more fraternal world” can only be “a world more imbued with the Gospel.”

By Carlo Cardinal Caffarra, Voice of the Family, 19, May 2017 – At the root of this is the work of Satan, who wants to build an actual anti-creation. This is the ultimate and terrible challenge which Satan is hurling at God. “I am demonstrating to you that I am capable of constructing an alternative to your creation. And man will say: it is better in the alternative creation than in your creation”… This is the frightful strategy of the lie, constructed around a profound contempt for man. Man is not capable of elevating himself to the splendour of the Truth. He is not capable of living within the paradox of an infinite desire for happiness. He is not able to find himself in the sincere gift of himself. And therefore – continues the Satanic discourse – we tell him banalities about man.

By Elle Purnell, The Federalist – The implied argument is, if prayer didn’t protect these young Christians from being killed, it must be useless or at least insufficient. There’s a transactional undercurrent to these protestations: that these children placed their faith in God and He failed to hold up His end of the bargain… Every Christian who has ever experienced suffering has wrestled with the question of why God does not prevent every tragedy. I’m sure the parents, siblings, grandparents, and friends of the victims are grasping for answers to those questions now… But it’s quite another thing to mock and belittle the prayers offered by students at the Annunciation Catholic School Wednesday morning, or the prayers offered by loved ones and strangers mourning the tragedy.

By Dr. Donald DeMarco, Catholic Exchange – Love tempers liberty so that it can be shared with others. Love also protects life. The harmonious triad of liberty, life, and love creates the path to happiness. Happiness is a reward, so to speak, for living life in a loving manner where liberty is properly honored. It will be futile to pursue or chase happiness directly. We should be more attentive to living a good life. Happiness will take care of itself.

By Robert Lazu Kmita, PhD, OnePeterFive – I was writing diligently when, during a break, I read a short article by Mr. Phil Lawler on his Substack channel. The title immediately caught my attention: “The exodus of young Catholics. Nine out of ten ‘cradle Catholics’ leave.”[1]… We can do as much theology and philosophy as we like, we can read and quote all the Church Fathers and Doctors of the Church, but if we are unable to seriously and fruitfully discuss such issues, everything is — more or less, perhaps more — useless.

By John Zmirak, The Stream – In strong, diverse Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Democrats serve as both mayor and governor, Christians cowered yesterday while another transgender terrorist, fueled by hatred, opened fire on them. The shooter wasn’t a Muslim, and he wasn’t a rural white guy like the Cracker Barrel mascot, but he did suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome… The attack took place at Assumption Catholic Church, and two children among the 22 victims had already been reported dead at press time. The killer took the coward’s way out and shot himself as well.

By Samantha Koch, Patriot Post – A recent study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research analyzed data from thousands of women, comparing mental health outcomes after abortion versus childbirth. The conclusion was alarming: Women who had an abortion were significantly more likely to suffer from mental health issues. This wasn’t a small statistical blip. Standing in stark contrast to women who carried their pregnancies to term and experienced the stress of pregnancy and motherhood, the research found higher risks of depression, anxiety, and substance abuse following abortion.

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – These words should look familiar: I believe in one God, The Father almighty Maker of heaven and earth, Of all things visible and invisible… the placement of that profession at the very start of the Nicene Creed should be enough to drive home the message. The Christian faith rejects the post-Cartesian conceit that everything real can be seen and felt, counted and measured. What we know, what we believe, and what we profess are not confined to what we can quantify… Love is a reality, for instance, as is pain. They are not visible. But we can see their effects, and so we know that in some cases, at least, what is invisible drives what is visible.

By Kate Quiñones, CNA Staff – The Catholic Church honors St. Augustine of Hippo, an early Church Father, doctor of the Church, and foundational theologian, on Aug. 28… Augustine was brought up as a Christian in his early childhood but drifted from the Church, fathering a child out of wedlock and falling into the heresy of Manichaeism. His mother, Monica, a woman of deep faith who was later canonized herself, never stopped praying for his return to the Church.

By Nate Guyear, Catholic Exchange – Several weeks ago, I was thinking about the sacraments being an outward sign of grace.  Then, I realized that Jesus, the eternal Word made flesh, is an outward sign of grace—a sacrament.  In fact, theologians refer to Him as the Primordial Sacrament, the first Sacrament from whom all the other sacraments flow.  The One who is invisible grace assumed a human nature to make grace visible, to save us from our sins, and to sanctify us (see CCC 774-776).

By Jules Gomes, The Stream – Catholics are bitterly divided over the issue of ecumenical unity with Protestants… Vatican II “embraced a novel doctrine in order to enable Ecumenism, the effort to procure ‘Christian unity’ with Orthodox and Protestant sects in some way other than by requiring Protestants to convert to Catholicism,” wrote Monsignor Joseph Fenton, who served on the Pontifical Theology Commission in preparation for Vatican II.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 24:42-51 – 42 Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43 But know this, that if the householder had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect. 45 “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? …

By Craig Bannister, CNS News – Wednesday morning’s shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, which left victims two dead and 17 wounded, is being investigated as a hate crime by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI Director Kash Patel announced in the hours following the incident… “The FBI is investigating this shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and hate crime targeting Catholics,” Patel reported in a social media post. “The FBI will continue to provide updates on our ongoing investigation with the public as we are able,” Patel wrote, providing details of the tragedy …

By Nathan Moelker, LifeNews – In a resounding victory for constitutional principles and the rule of law, U.S. District Judge Lance Walker just delivered a decisive blow to the abortion industry’s latest attempt to circumvent the democratic process and force taxpayers to subsidize their operations… In Family Planning Association of Maine v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the court correctly denieda preliminary injunction that would have blocked implementation of the “Big Beautiful Bill’s” provision that defunds major abortion providers. This victory comes alongside the parallel Massachusetts case, Planned Parenthood v. Kennedy, where Planned Parenthood Federation of America challenged the same legislation.

By CNA Staff, Aug 27, 2025 / 11:13 am – Law enforcement on Wednesday said two children have been killed at a shooting during a Mass held at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, with the gunman reportedly taking his own life after the deadly attack… Follow here for live updates… Note: CNA has concluded its live blog for the day. We will return with more information on Thursday starting at 8 a.m. ET.

By Michael Pakaluk, The Catholic Thing – St. Augustine’s conversion began, on his own telling, when, as a nineteen-year-old boy – roughly the age of a college sophomore today – he encountered a dialogue by Cicero called the Hortensius: Quite definitely it changed the direction of my mind, altered my prayers to You, O Lord, and gave me a new purpose and ambition. Suddenly all the vanity I had hoped in I saw as worthless, and with an incredible intensity of desire I longed after immortal wisdom. …

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky, Crisis Magazine – God created us in freedom. He placed the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden as a test of our freedom. Our first parents failed the test. The Church teaches that Original Sin didn’t destroy us. Even sin cannot obliterate God’s good creation. However, Original Sin badly wounded human nature, and we became slaves to sin in need of redemption.

By Rob Marco, Crisis Magazine – For many Catholics, the Covid era was regarded as an illumination of sorts. Churches were shuttered, government slipped on an iron glove, and separations began to ensue. These could be seen as contractions, if you will, prior to the more serious birth pangs foretold in Matthew 24: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom…Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me” (Matthew 24:7, 9).

By M.D. Kittle, The Federalist – Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan claims she’s immune from being prosecuted over federal charges she helped a violent illegal immigrant elude Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. But Dugan learned on Tuesday that no man — or woman — is higher than the law… Apparently, Dugan’s alleged conduct was so egregious that even one of the more notoriously leftist federal judges in the country couldn’t look the other way.

(In) Brad Wilcox’s ambitious “Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization”… Wilcox is a strong statistician, and his book is full of exceptionally valuable, detailed information and analysis about contemporary social and economic phenomena in the USA and the West. It’s particularly insightful about catastrophically declining birth rates, marriage rates for different demographic groups, and surveys of several negative social indicators such as unemployment of men, drug abuse, loneliness, and “deaths by despair.” ….

By Jacob Plante, Catholic Exchange – God is doing something incredible with Gen Z, and secular media is noticing… The same outlets that once confidently proclaimed, “Religion is dying! Young people are leaving churches in droves! Christians to be a minority by 2050!” now seem to be changing their tune… the headlines from mainstream media read more like, “Catholicism sees major resurgence among Gen Z” (Fox News) and “Young people are converting to Catholicism en masse” (New York Post). CNN recently published a podcast titled “Catholicism Is So Hot Right Now. Why?” …

By Michelle Laque Johnson, CNA – Most people think of St. Maximilian Kolbe as the heroic martyr who traded places with another prisoner in Auschwitz, resulting in a painful death by starvation, but there is much more of the story to tell. What would give someone the courage to do such a thing, and why was this sacrifice not the reason he was canonized?… This special program highlights three historical events that had a decisive impact on Kolbe’s life and his responses, which speak to us even today.

By Randy Hain, Integrated Catholic – We celebrated the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola last week a few weeks ago. That prompted me to consider it a good time to return to one of my favorite prayer tools for Catholic professionals: the daily Examen… Over the years I have had numerous discussions with Catholic businessmen and women around the country about making time for prayer and reflection during the busy work day. People have been interested in how I keep the Jesuit Daily Examen on my calendar, so I am sharing it here along with suggested times.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 23:1-12 – 1 Then said Jesus to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; 3 so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice. 4 They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by men; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long …

By Mark Haas, Crisis Magazine – Indeed, Trump has played a major role in brokering recent peace deals in troubled regions—between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and India and Pakistan. He has also sought to bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table. The question arises: Can such incredible work bring a man to Heaven?… Ultimately, the answer of Heaven must not begin with political leaders, nor with humanitarian accomplishments, but with Jesus Christ Himself. Our Lord declared in the Gospel of John: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Salvation is not attained through human achievement …..

By Nathan Morley, Vatican News – The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification has confirmed a famine in Gaza City for the first time, raising its alert to Phase 5 — the highest level on its acute food insecurity scale… More than 500,000 people are facing catastrophic conditions, according to the IPC report released Thursday. An additional 1.07 million residents, or 54% of Gaza’s population, are experiencing emergency-level food insecurity, classified as Phase 4.

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture – In a Church that has been preoccupied for several years now with listening to everyone’s opinions and toying with mechanisms to engage an ever-larger group of often nominal Catholics in a chaotic exercise of self-direction, it is enormously refreshing to listen to Pope Leo’s repeated efforts to put the emphasis back where it really belongs—that is, on Jesus Christ and on doing not our will but His. Pope Leo seems to understand that we cannot proclaim the Gospel (or even raise our own children properly) without insisting that Jesus Christ alone is our Lord and Savior.

By John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist – Making original films for young men isn’t that hard, but you have to quit pushing gay race communism and appeal to masculine virtue… Executives at Walt Disney Studios are reportedly pressing Hollywood creatives for movie ideas that will bring young men back to the theaters. According to Variety, Disney is hoping to get Gen Z men, which it defines as ages 13 to 28, interested in original films.

By Julianna Frieman, The American Spectator – Cracker Barrel’s recent logo redesign has sparked a heated debate, with many critics quick to call it just another example of “woke” branding. The company removed its iconic barrel and chair-sitting man from the logo, opting instead for a cleaner, simpler look. It’s clear that the leadership behind this change embraces progressive politics, but is this redesign really just about provoking outrage from conservatives? Or is it part of a broader, more complex business and cultural trend?

Franciscan Media – The first canonized saint of the New World has one characteristic of all saints—the suffering of opposition—and another characteristic which is more for admiration than for imitation—excessive practice of mortification… She was born to parents of Spanish descent in Lima, Peru, at a time when South America …

By Susan Ciancio, Catholic World Report – On August 22nd, we celebrate the Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Established by Pope Pius XII in 1954, this feast illustrates the fact that not only is Mary queen of heaven and earth but that, in this role, she is also our spiritual mother… Mary’s queenship has biblical roots, with one of the most outstanding being during the Annunciation, when “Gabriel announced that Mary’s Son would receive the throne of David and rule forever” (cf. Lk 1:26-38).

By Nicolás de Cárdenas, ACI Prensa, CNA – Pope Leo XIV has called for a day of fasting and prayer for peace on Friday, Aug. 22, coinciding with the liturgical feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary… The Holy Father made the announcement Aug. 20 during his greeting to Italian-speaking pilgrims at the conclusion of the catechesis for the general audience, recalling that Our Lady, in addition to being queen, is “also invoked as Queen of Peace.”

By Hannah Hiester, Catholic Vote – The Democratic Party is dealing with a voter registration crisis across the country while Republicans continue to gain voters, a New York Times journalist explained in an X thread… Shane Goldmacher shared voter registration data from the 30 states, plus Washington, D.C., that allow partisan registration. In the thread, he noted that Democrats lost 2.1 million voters in those states between 2020 and 2024. Republicans gained 2.4 million voters in the same areas. …

By Jordan Boyd, The Federalist – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton hit abortion pill dealers accused of promoting and mailing abortion drugs to Lone Star State residents with cease and desist orders last week for their apparent violation of state and federal laws… The letters single out the abortion dealers Plan C and Her Safe Harbor, as well as an “affiliate” of Aid Access named Remy Coeytaux for “promoting, selling, or facilitating the shipment” of the drug regimen responsible for most of the nation’s abortions ….

By Jarrett Stepman, The Daily Signal – President Donald Trump has pledged to “make D.C. safe again,” with a federal intervention to stop crime in the nation’s capital. To emphasize the point, Trump is doing a ride-along with law enforcement around Washington Thursday night… “I’m going to be going out tonight, I think, with the police and with the military, of course. So we’re going to do a job. The National Guard is great. They’ve done a fantastic job,” Trump said to radio host Todd Starnes, noting that he hoped that by focusing on crime in the district, he would trigger more cities to follow his lead.

By M.C. Holbrook, Catholic Exchange – Today, we honor Mary as “Queen of Heaven”—again, a dogma that is not explicitly stated in Scripture, but one that is nonetheless logically concluded. So how is Mary’s queenship in heaven a logical conclusion? Pretty simple, really. All mothers of Israel’s kings held the royal title, “Queen Mother,” and as Mary’s son is King of Kings, this makes Mary, queen.  Still, the fact that Mary is called, “Queen of Heaven” doesn’t just give the rest of us a new and lovely title by which to refer to her.

Author Don Schwager , Servants of the Word – Matthew 22:34-40 – 34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. …

By Austin Ruse, Crisis Magazine – The intense focus on the daily minutia of the Holy Father can veer into unhealthy voyeurism… Not long ago, Rich Raho, a high school teacher with a not insignificant audience on 𝕏, posted a picture of Pope Leo along with this: “Every pontificate has a defining moment, and Leo’s ‘moonlight speech’ tonight was one of them. Unscripted and energized by thousands of young people in the Square, Leo let his guard down, and the crowd roared and embraced him…” ….

By Thomas Gallatin, Patriot Post – The recent, completely avoidable deadly accident in Florida once again highlights the problem of the Democrat leadership’s failure to uphold our nation’s laws… That brings us to a traffic accident in Florida, where an illegal alien driving a tractor-trailer attempted an illegal U-turn that ended up costing the lives of three people. While not as heinous and malicious as some of the high-profile murders perpetrated by illegal aliens, the Florida accident serves to once again highlight the problem with illegal immigration.

By Bridget Sielicki, Live Action News – Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and longtime pro-life advocate, died Thursday at the age of 89. According to an announcement from Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, he is survived by “his wife of 64 years, Shirley; their children, Danae and Ryan; daughtethe r-in-law Laura; and two beloved grandchildren.”

By Frank Pavone, LifeNews – Hundreds of pastors and their spouses from a wide range of denominations gathered in Williamsburg, VA from August 18-21 for the “Liberty Pastors” camp, an intensive training in Biblical worldview and in how the Church can address key moral issues of the day… The abortion issue was featured prominently, not only through the presentation I was invited to give to all the pastors, but also through frequent reference by the other speakers to how particularly grave and harmful abortion continues to be. …

Patriot Post – “To prevent crimes, is the noblest end and aim of criminal jurisprudence. To punish them, is one of the means necessary for the accomplishment of this noble end and aim.” —James Wilson (1790)

By Kristina Millare, Catholic News Agency – Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday continued his catechesis on “Jesus Christ Our Hope” and invited Catholics around the world to dedicate the Aug. 22 feast of the Queenship of Mary to a day of prayer and fasting for world peace… “As our world continues to be wounded by wars in the Holy Land, in Ukraine, and in other parts of the world, I invite all the faithful to live the day of Aug. 22 as a day of prayer and fasting, imploring the Lord to grant us peace and justice, and to wipe away the tears of those who suffer because of ongoing armed conflicts,” he said. …

By Elise Winland, Catholic Vote – The state of California issued a commercial driver’s license to an illegal immigrant from India who is now accused of causing a deadly crash on Florida’s Turnpike and has failed basic English and road sign tests, federal officials said… On Aug. 12, Harjinder Singh attempted an illegal U-turn through an “Official Use Only” access point on the Turnpike in St. Lucie County, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV) said Aug. 16. …

By Martin Barillas, National Catholic Register – In August 2024, the Binghams attended the National Eucharistic Congress… “Being surrounded by 60,000 passionate, devoted Catholics was incredible, especially considering that just a few months earlier, we hardly knew any Catholics,” Dan wrote in an email, adding: “Worshipping God together in the Holy Mass, and being part of such a vibrant, faithful community, was deeply moving. We had the chance to meet Trent Horn, whose book Why We’re Catholic was important in our journey.”

By Robert Folker, News Reporter, Daily Mail – Pope Leo XIV is said to be planning to ask a number of to-be ‘flatmates’ if they want to live with him when he moves into the papal apartments later this year… Days after his election, the Pope announced he would live in the luxurious Papal apartments in Rome’s Apostolic Palace, unlike his predecessor Pope Francis… The 10 rooms inside the 16th-century apartment are currently being renovated, with three or four of his brethren set to move in with him, La Repubblica reported on Tuesday.

By Jules Gomes, The Stream – The U.S. Catholic Church is plummeting in membership, with nine out of 10 cradle Catholics abandoning it to become religious “nones,” a bombshell study has revealed… “More and more of those raised Catholic are leaving,” the study published in the University of Notre Dame’s Church Life Journal on August 12 concludes… Examining church attendance figures from 1973 onward, philosopher Michael Rota and sociologist Stephen Bullivant, both committed Catholics, note that “while many religious groups in the U.S. have experienced decline over this period, Catholics are doing particularly poorly.”

By Breccan F. Thies,  The Federalist – More than $50 million in grant funding, including formula, discretionary, and impact aid grants, will be under the reimbursement status, meaning the districts will have to prove that federal dollars are being spent consistently with federal law in order to get federal funding… The move comes after all five districts were found in violation of Title IX for maintaining their “transgender” policies allowing students to use the restrooms and locker rooms of the opposite sex based on “gender identity,” forcing students and teachers to use “preferred pronouns” at the threat of disciplinary action, and other far-left gender theory policies.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 22:1-14 – 1 And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, 2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a marriage feast for his son,3 and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the marriage feast; but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other servants, saying, `Tell those who are invited, Behold, I have made ready my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves are killed, and everything is ready; come to the marriage feast.’ ….

By Susan Ciancio, Catholic World Report – A new book by Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, CFR, explains how we can discover hope through the Beatitudes and is also an excellent resource for those in the pro-life movement… “We all want to know: What can I expect my life to look like when I’m following Jesus? How do I know I’m doing it right?” Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, CFR, asks this at the beginning of his new book, Eight Promises of God. His response? We find the answer in the Beatitudes.

By Mike Smith, Bloomberg, (Complicit Clergy) – In immigrant-heavy Miami, Cuban-born businessman Mike Fernandez and Archbishop Thomas Wenski are leading a backlash to ICE sweeps… Wenski, 74, has taken an active role — with help from a Trump-loathing local billionaire — in trying to protect and provide comfort to immigrants who fear being caught up in ICE’s sweeps. He helped expand a Church program that provides free legal advice to immigrants facing deportation….

By Constance T. Hull, Catholic Exchange – One of my students told me a story about a project he did for his ethics class last year. He brought out a crucifix, placed it in front of the class, and talked about our call to forgive. He shared how Jesus forgives us of everything we do when we turn to Him, so we are required to forgive those who hurt us. The response from the students was passionate and intense wrath. They couldn’t imagine forgiving the people who had hurt them. They didn’t believe they had an obligation to forgive, believing instead that they had a right to demand punishment.

By John R. Lott Jr., The Federalist – D.C.’s murder rate … an astonishing 523 percent higher than that of the average state… The evidence makes clear that Washington, D.C., faces one of the worst crime problems in the nation. This is true even if one ignores the claims that D.C. is manipulating its crime numbers and that the large gap between reported and total crime is likely larger for D.C… Democrats may downplay the crisis, but the data show that the district outpaces every state and nearly every major city in violent and property crime, murder, and robbery. Until Democrats confront reality instead of dismissing concerns, residents and businesses will continue to pay the price.

By Craig Bannister, CNS News – U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi hosted a hot dog barbeque for law enforcement officers in D.C. Sunday evening, feeding the force before they headed out to protect citizens under President Donald Trump’s executive order to clean up the crime emergency in the Nation’s Capital… “No better way to spend a Sunday night! Make DC Safe Again!” Bondi wrote on social media, posting a photo from the event.

By John Zmirak, The Stream – Last week, we reported extensively on the collapse of civil liberties in Britain, where a government intent on colonizing the country with millions of Muslim migrants cracks down on native citizens who register any objection to that practice. Perhaps that sounds overheated, as if I were exaggerating for rhetorical effect. Nope, there’s no need for hyperbole, with more than 30 Britons arrested every day for nonviolent posts on social media: Patriotic Britons are pushing back in whatever ways they can — for instance, by running up or painting traditional English flags in public places.

By Emmy Griffin, Patriot Post – Media outfits such as The Washington Post and Forbes are shocked that mothers are leaving the workforce in record numbers… According to WaPo economics correspondent Abha Bhattarai, “The share of working mothers ages 25 to 44 with young children has fallen nearly every month this year, dropping by nearly 3 percentage points between January and June, to the lowest level in more than three years, according to an analysis of federal data by Misty Heggeness ….

By Stephen P. White, The Catholic Thing – One sign of our improbably ludicrous times is that the question, “What is a woman?” has become a point of political contention in recent years. The obvious answer (obvious, that is, until just yesterday) has proven unsatisfactory to the keepers of the Zeitgeist for whom the connection between nature and meaning has been thoroughly dissolved… A world that doesn’t know what a man or a woman is, let alone what it means to be a man or a woman, is going to have a very difficult time figuring out what it means to be a good man or a good woman.

Franciscan Media – Pope Pius X is perhaps best remembered for his encouragement of the frequent reception of Holy Communion, especially by children… The second of 10 children in a poor Italian family, Joseph Sarto became Pius X at age 68. He was one of the 20th century’s greatest popes… Ever mindful of his humble origin, Pope Pius stated, “I was born poor, I lived poor, I will die poor.”

By Gideon Lazar, Crisis Magazine – In a recent article, Philip Primeau argued that Jesus should not be considered a “faithful Jew.” Primeau has a very rightful concern that this turn of phrase feeds religious indifferentism and thereby discourages evangelism. Primeau is a good friend of mine, and I think he has nothing but good intentions in his article. Indeed, from our conversations about this, I think we agree with much of the substance of the matter. …

By Almudena Martínez-Bordiú, National Catholic Register – (Pope Leo XIV) emphasized that “wherever the name of Christ is preached, injustice recedes proportionally, for, as the Apostle Paul asserts, all exploitation of man by man disappears if we are able to receive one another as brothers and sisters.”… Within this “perennial doctrine,” the Holy Father emphasized the importance of caring for the “home” that God the Father “has entrusted to us as diligent stewards, so that no one irresponsibly destroys the natural goods that speak of the goodness and beauty of the Creator.”… “Nor, much less, subjects oneself to them as a slave or worshipper of nature, since things have been given to us to attain our end of praising God and thus obtaining the salvation of our souls,” the Holy Father stated, citing St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises.

By Fr. Kevin Drew, Catholic Exchange – Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division… Christ warned us that families would bust apart because of Him.  Father against son and mother against daughter.  Throw a person’s in-laws into the mix, and Christ comes off as some sort of divine homewrecker… We see how our world is wrought with division.  Do we attribute this to Christ?  Of course not. The point is that Christ has to come first.  We have to love God and then love neighbor—in that order. …

By Elizabeth Weibel, Breitbart – The semi-truck driver, who allegedly killed three Americans while making an illegal U-turn in Florida, failed an English language proficiency test and also failed to accurately identify highway traffic signs… In a press release from the DOT, it was revealed that officials with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) had launched an investigation into the deadly crash in Florida, which left three people dead… the driver, who has been identified as Harjinder Singh, investigators administered an English Language Proficiency (ELP) assessment. …

By Michael Haynes, Substack, (PerMariam) – Praising Pope Leo XIV, Cardinal Burke has said that the new Pope “is characterized by Christo-centrism.”… The election of an American Pope on May 8 took many by surprise, especially given the anecdote oft-repeated around Rome than an American could never be pope… But Leo XIV’s early weeks have not been marked by any particular demonstration of national identity, neither American or Peruvian – where he spent many years ministering before coming to Rome… In Cardinal Raymond Burke’s assessment, Leo has shown himself to be a Pope centered upon Christ. …

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 20:1-16 – 1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market place; 4 and to them he said, `You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ …

By John Zmirak, The Stream – Well, today is a bad day if you’re a liberal who loves to defend crime in DC… The Trump Derangement Syndrome is so off the charts in Washington, DC, that liberals are literally siding with criminals just to oppose President Trump. That’s how broken their spirits, morality, and politics are. They would rather see robbery, carjackings, and violent crime run rampant than admit Trump’s law-and-order plan is working. …

By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing – That forgotten saint is Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), the Mellifluous Doctor, whose feast is today. We’re somewhat aware of Doctors of the Church again just now because of St. John Henry Newman’s nomination to that very exclusive body (he brings their number up to only 38). Some have been given special names because of what they did. Augustine is the “doctor of grace,” Aquinas the “angelic doctor,” Anselm the “doctor magnificus.” …..

By Adam Pack, LifeNews -Virginia’s off-year gubernatorial contest is tightening less than three months ahead of election day with Republican Virginia Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears within striking distance of her Democratic opponent, according to recent polling… Earle-Sears, the GOP nominee for governor, trails former Democratic Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger by seven percentage points, according to a Roanoke College poll released Tuesday. A previous survey conducted by the pollster in May found the Democratic nominee leading Earle-Sears by 17 percentage points in the state’s 2025 governor race.

Patriot Post – “I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home.” —George Washington (1795)

By Alyssa Johnson, Op-ed contributor,  The Christian Post – Alyssa Johnson is the mother of a trans-identified teen in Oregon… I’m the mother of an estranged, gender-confused minor child… I haven’t seen her for years, and Oregon state law has allowed and enabled it. I’m far from the only one to whom it has happened, but here is a glimpse into the state machinery and how it has unfolded for so many of us… First, the worst part about losing your child to this scandalous system is that it profits off them. The next worst part is defending your reputation to everyone involved.

By Rob Marco, Crisis Magazine – I did not discover the Latin Mass until seven years ago, so my Catholic upbringing as an adult convert for the past twenty-plus years was in the New Mass. The hymns were embarrassing to sing, throngs of self-appointed church ladies seemed to run the parish, and nothing of substance was ever preached from the pulpit. Despite this, at the core, I knew I had found the Truth, the Gospel mustard seed, and I was willing to endure it all if it meant being united to Jesus Christ in His one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. …

By Isabella Childs, Live Action – A woman is blaming Texas law for her decision to twice travel to Colorado to abort baby boys she and her husband conceived by IVF, after receiving diagnoses of bilateral renal genesis for each of their preborn sons… In her article, “Texas law forced me to choose: Watch my baby die or flee my home for medical help,” published by Courier Texas and reprinted by Ms. Magazine, Megan Bond described the abortions as “medical care,” and presented abortion as the couple’s only option and as her own self-sacrificial choice. Bond also blamed Texas’ pro-life laws for the couple’s suffering.

By Debbie Cowden, National Catholic Register – Don’t forget about the most important part of your children’s upbringing: their Catholic faith! Starting a new school year is a great time to introduce new habits so your family can live out the faith more fully. As a mom of four kids, three of whom are school age, I’m proposing realistic, easy-to-implement practices of the faith your family can begin this fall… These back-to-school tips are specifically geared toward supporting the normal rhythm of your day during the school year, whether sending your kids to school or home schooling.

By Elise Winland, Catholic Vote – President Donald Trump said Aug. 18 he will lead a movement to eliminate mail-in ballots and electronic voting machines, arguing both undermine election integrity… In a Truth Social post, Trump claimed mail-in voting has produced “MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD” and called voting machines “‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial… Instead, he proposed paper ballots with watermarks, which he said are faster, more accurate, and leave “NO DOUBT” about election outcomes…

Franciscan Media – Man of the century! Woman of the century! You see such terms applied to so many today—“golfer of the century,” “composer of the century,” “right tackle of the century”—that the line no longer has any punch. But Western Europe’s “man of the twelfth century,” without doubt or controversy, had to be Bernard of Clairvaux.

By Kurt Zindulka, Breitbart – During a day full of crunch peace talks with leaders from the United Kingdom, the European Union, NATO, and Ukraine, President Trump broke off to personally call Moscow, arrange a bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelensky, and an ultimately set up a “trilat” three-way meeting in which he will act as mediator for a final peace agreement… Before the breakthrough by the president on Monday afternoon, the Kremlin had been reticent over agreeing to any face-to-face talks with Zelensky, opting only to negotiate through the Trump White House.

By Kevin Wells, Crisis Magazine – Eduardo Verástegui’s tearful plea came before 3,000 girls at Girlstown in Chalco, Mexico, a fraction of the 20,000 children the Sisters of Mary mother back to health worldwide—children the Mexican actor has come to cherish…. The sun was sinking against two snow-capped volcanoes when Eduardo Verástegui looked out over a sea of teenage girls who sat before him in a mammoth gymnasium in Mexico. They wore blue skirts, white blouses, bobby socks, and black saddle shoes—like figures from an old black-and-white drawing pulled from a chapter on purity in the Baltimore Catechism.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 19:23-30 – 23 And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” 25 When the disciples heard this they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” 26 But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” …

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – More than a month ago, Archbishop Guy de Kerimel of Toulouse made the appalling decision to appoint a convicted rapist as chancellor of his archdiocese. He explained that he had “taken the side of mercy,” since after serving his prison term for the felony, Father Dominique Spina remained ineligible for any ordinary pastoral ministry… The appointment caused anger and astonishment. Was it really possible that after years of outrage over clerical abuse, an archbishop could show such sympathy for the abuser, while ignoring the impact that his decision would have on those who had been abused? …

By Paul Seaton, Catholic World Report – Benedict XVI coined a phrase—“secular culture”—to capture a global threat to our humanity. In it, technological rationality is deemed the highest version of reason. In truth, however, it distorts its objects and cuts humanity off from the deepest wells of spiritual and moral wisdom. Turned toward nature, it fails to listen to the logos in creation; turned toward man, it denies his God-given dignity and reduces him to manipulable matter. …

By Joshua Slocum, The Federalist – The Financial Times’ John Burn-Murdoch analyzed data from a set of longitudinal surveys of personality characteristics and found an unprecedented decline in positive, pro-social traits such as extroversion and conscientiousness, along with a huge spike in neurotic thoughts and behavior. Those changes were quite obviously tied to the social, cultural, and governmental upheaval wrought by the hysterical response to the Covid-19 virus.

By Veronica Burchard, Catholic Exchange – We now stand on the brink of another revolution that changes the relationship between man and machine: the possibilities and challenges presented by artificial intelligence (or AI)… Our new Pope Leo XIV continued to explain to the Cardinals that “in our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labor.”

By John Zmirak, The Stream - Since retaking office, Trump has boldly tackled a long list of issues Republicans have been gaslit into thinking were “untouchable,” politically toxic, or futile lost causes: immigration, DEI, Roe v. Wade, the Ukraine war, etc. But his most recent post on Truth Social suggests the president is ready to use both meaty hands to grasp the real third rail in our politics: our corrupt, manipulated voting system.

By Craig Bannister, CNS News – “This is what happens when you actually enforce the law,” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi explained Friday, providing details on the types of arrests made thus far during President Donald Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to the city… “189 arrests in D.C. — and counting,” Bondi reported in a social media post Friday afternoon. Of those 189 arrests, 75 (40%) were made by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, the attorney general reported.

By Zelda Caldwell, National Catholic Register – John Prevost talked about his daily communications with his brother in a recent interview with a Chicago news station… Ever since his brother was named pope, John Prevost hasn’t been shy about talking to the press. Pope Leo XIV’s first phone call with his brother went viral, after a reporter captured it on video (“Why don’t you answer the phone,” the newly elected Pontiff had snapped at his brother in a highly relatable sibling interaction captured for posterity).

By Wesley J. Smith, Live Action – Opponents of euthanasia have been screaming about Canada’s god-awful euthanasia machine for years. And it keeps getting worse. Now, the mainstream media — usually in the tank for assisted suicide — has finally noticed, as demonstrated by a thoroughly researched and objectively presented story by Elaina Plott Calabro… Calabro discusses examples of doctors who have killed hundreds of patients, people who have had themselves killed because they couldn’t access proper support services, and many other cases. Euthanasia is Canada’s fifth-leading cause of death, with more than 15,000 patients terminated annually. …

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – With the state of Virginia under massive scrutiny following reports that a high school in Fairfax trafficked multiple girls out of state for secret abortions, members of Congress have introduced a federal bill to make it illegal nationwide… Cong. David Taylor has introduced the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act in the House and Rep. Bob Onder (MO-03), and Rep. Mark Harris (NC-08) are key co-sponsors. …

By Eduardo Berdejo, ACI Prensa Staff, (CNA) – The ongoing violence in the Holy Land, especially now with the war in Gaza, was addressed by the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, in his homily during the solemnity of the Assumption of Mary… The prelate’s diocese includes not only Israel but also those living in the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank. This has allowed him to experience firsthand the consequences of violence, especially that which has ravaged the Gaza Strip in the last two years and which requires true words of peace, not “sugarcoated and abstract” speeches, he said.

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky, Catholic Culture – As we consider our Catholic faith—and the faith of Catholics around the world—we are accustomed to referring to American Catholics, European Catholics, Asian Catholics, Hispanic Catholics, or African Catholics. But the tribal adjectives modify the Catholic noun. Perhaps it would be better to accentuate the universality of the Catholic faith, which transcends every nation, as we modify every tribe with the Catholic adjective: Catholic Americans, Catholic Europeans, Catholic Asians, Catholic Africans, and so on.

Franciscan Media – Franciscan Media – How little we know where God’s grace will lead. Born on a farm in northern France, John died at 79 in the next “county” or department. In that time, he was a religious, a parish missionary, founder of two religious communities, and a great promoter of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. ..

By Tara Suter, The Hill – President Trump is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders on Monday following his controversial meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday… “I have already arrived in Washington, tomorrow I am meeting with President Trump. Tomorrow we are also speaking with European leaders. I am grateful to @POTUS  for the invitation. We all share a strong desire to end this war quickly and reliably. And peace must be lasting,” Zelensky said in a post on the social platform X late Sunday night…

By John Zmirak, The Stream – On Friday, I laid out the background to the war our Deep State provoked in Ukraine. That started with broken U.S. promises to Russia and the push to extend NATO right up to Russia’s borders. In 2013, our CIA staged a coup in Ukraine and took de facto control of its government. Then Obama officials floated the prospect of Ukraine joining our military alliance. This was exactly parallel to the USSR putting nuclear missiles in Cuba, and Vladimir Putin’s reaction wasn’t much different from John F. Kennedy’s: He called in the military.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 19:16-22 – 16 And behold, one came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?” 17 And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” 18 He said to him, “Which?” And Jesus said, “You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal ….

By Grace Porto, Catholic Vote – A fallen-away Catholic and a non-practicing Christian had been together for years when in 2023, they decided to fully join the Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of Denver, just five months before they were married. Anna Nelson told Denver Catholic that she encountered God in the quiet stillness of Catholicism. Her husband, Taylor, said he found the peace he had been seeking for years in therapy in the Church of his youth.

By Fr. David Frederici, Catholic Exchange – We know the spiritual basics: the Liturgy of the Hours, daily Mass, Reconciliation, and a daily Holy Hour. But when these become mere duties or routines, and when we begin to skip them, our vocation is in danger. We’ve all heard stories of brother priests who left ministry and later admitted that praying the breviary had long since fallen away. The sexual abuse crisis exploded not long after I was ordained. I am certain that what kept me rooted in Christ and faithful to my vocation during those turbulent years was my commitment to praying the breviary.

By Franciscan Media – When he died at the age of 23, Louis was already a Franciscan, a bishop, and a saint!… Louis’s parents were Charles II of Naples and Sicily, and Mary, daughter of the King of Hungary. Louis was related to Saint Louis IX on his father’s side and to Elizabeth of Hungary on his mother’s side.

By Emily Malloy, National Catholic Register –  I Am Going to See Her One Day is a hymn woven into the consciousness of South Louisiana Cajuns. The reality that heaven is our true homeland is generally intuited by all Catholics, but it resonates deeply within Cajun culture… Often forgotten is the story of the French Catholics expelled from Nova Scotia by the British 260 years ago. After a 30-year exile filled with unimaginable hardship, the scattered Acadians were welcomed into Louisiana by the king of Spain, as it was then under Spanish control… The annual Eucharistic boat procession on the Solemnity of the Assumption in Cajun country not only articulates the deep devotion of those in the region but also ….

By Robert A. Sirico, The Free Press – There was once a time when the names of political prisoners—people like Nelson Mandela, Andrei Sakharov, and Václav Havel—were known to all Americans. Jimmy Lai, who currently languishes in a Hong Kong prison, stands among these giants. His name should be known to every person who believes in freedom… Lai, now 77, is perhaps today’s most outspoken critic of the Chinese Communist Party. For more than three decades, until its bank accounts were frozen in 2021, he ran the pro-democracy paper he founded, Apple Daily.

By Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness – At the August 15 Alaska summit, Vladimir Putin performed as expected. He desperately wants an end to Western sanctions, détente with the U.S., and assurances that the U.S. will not impose a disastrous anti-Russian secondary boycott—and, apparently, some additional Ukrainian territory… Consequently, Putin, in his media synopsis, talked more about restored friendship with a “neighborly” United States under Trump. He scarcely mentioned Ukraine directly—other than to imply to Westerners that he seeks not merely to annex a foreign country, but to reclaim what he views as a former Soviet province with ancient ties to the Russian people.

Maggie Gallagher, The Catholic Thing – When (Pope Leo XIV) stood on the loggia of St. Peter’s in his very first public appearance, like a good Augustinian friar, he chanted the Regina Caeli, along with 100,000 people gathered from the four corners of the earth, speaking as many different languages as at the Tower of Babel.  Yet together they could spontaneously sing the ancient hymn – in Latin – at that historic moment, showing the value of recovering Latin as the common language of the Catholic Church. ….

By Peter Wolfgang, Catholic Culture – The National Catholic Reporter, by contrast, is a leftist dissident rag that, if authority in the Church was functioning one-tenth as well as it should, would have been put out of its misery years ago. But it has an audience… Perhaps the takeaway here is that there appears to be no longer an audience for rational un-hyperbolic Catholic commentary that leans Democrat. If so, we are poorer for it. And for losing the OSV.

By Ronald L. Jelinek, Ph.D., Catholic World Report – Having spent nearly a quarter century teaching on college campuses, I have learned that eighteen to twenty-two-year-olds have forever wrestled with three existential questions: “Who created me?” “For what purpose?” “How do I know?” These questions aren’t typically asked aloud. They do not explicitly come up in class.
But they envelop almost every interaction I have with students.

By Regis Nicoll, Crisis Magazine – In the “Separation of Church and State,” has the state taken over the role of the Church in the wider culture?… The raft of executive orders aimed at scaling back government support for non-defense programs like welfare, health care, and foreign aid has led to everything from emotional stress to physical suffering and mortality for program dependents, as well as everything from criticism to contempt from those who consider those services the moral duty of government.

By Tyler Arnold, Catholic News Agency – Planned Parenthood affiliates based in pro-life states rake in close to a half-billion dollars from various sources in annual revenue, which includes millions of dollars in taxpayer funds, according to a new report… The revenue data, which was unveiled by the Catholic nonprofit American Life League (ALL) on Aug. 18, found that the financial performance of Planned Parenthood affiliates in pro-life states is nearly identical to the performance of affiliates in pro-abortion states.

By Catholic Vote News Feed – President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin both spoke positively of their historic peace talk in Alaska Friday, but they did not reach the Ukraine ceasefire agreement Trump had sought… In brief comments to the press after the summit, Putin touted that the “negotiations have been held in a constructive atmosphere of mutual respect.” He said Russia “is sincerely interested in putting an end” to the war in Ukraine, and spoke of having reached “agreements” with Trump but did not specify any details.

Bishop Joseph Edward Strickland is known for his unwavering defense of the Deposit of Faith, his pastoral heart, and his courageous witness in an age of great moral and doctrinal confusion… Now through Pillars of Faith, Bishop Strickland continues to speak, write, and teach in defense of the Deposit of Faith – guiding souls to live the Catholic faith with fidelity and boldness… The name Pillars of Faith finds inspiration in the powerful vision of St. John Bosco, who saw the Church as a great ship in stormy seas – anchored between two mighty pillars: the Holy Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin Mary. ….

By Hannah Hiester, Catholic Vote – A Texas man is suing a California doctor, claiming that the doctor mailed abortion pills to his girlfriend, violated state and federal law, and caused the wrongful death of his two unborn children… According to the complaint against Dr. Remy Coeytaux, filed July 20, Jerry Rodriguez is seeking an injunction to stop the doctor from distributing abortion drugs in Texas on behalf of “all current and future fathers of unborn children in the United States.” Rodriguez also seeks $75,000 in damages. …

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – So far this year, the Planned Parenthood abortion business has closed 41 centers. Despite what the abortion giant and the media would have Americans think, they all participated in abortions… Some would kill babies directly with surgical abortions. Others would kill babies by selling the dangerous abortion pill that also kills and injures women. Still others would make abortion referrals – with Planned Parenthood locations in pro-life states arranging abortions in other states or using telehealth to sell abortion pills to women in violation of state pro-life laws. …

Catholic Vote News Feed – The head of a US-based Catholic apostolate reported Aug. 14 that the Israeli military had bombed a warehouse in Gaza the day before where the organization had stored more than 4,000 cans of baby formula to be distributed later in the week… “Two of my aid workers were killed in the bombing yesterday,” said Jason Jones, founder and president of the Vulnerable People Project (VPP). “We mourn them, and we will not forget their courage.”… The stated mission of VPP is to “defend the vulnerable from violence by promoting human dignity and inspiring solidarity,” an agenda Jones describes as an application of Catholic social teaching.

By John Zmirak, Chronicles Magazine, (Complicit Clergy) – Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso has compared support of deportations to support for legal abortion. Statement after statement from the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops make the claim that support for what amounts to open borders is mandatory to a “holistic” pro-life stance. Indeed, in response to an expose about Planned Parenthood’s participation in selling fetal body parts for profit, Cardinal Blaise Cupich of Chicago could not condemn it without making the comparison to immigration law in The Chicago Tribune ….

By Caroline Perkins, ChurchPop – Early in his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV visited the Shrine of the Mother of Good Counsel near Rome. The shrine is home to a famous image of the Virgin Mary that, according to Catholic tradition, appeared there under miraculous circumstances… The Basilica of Our Lady of Good Counsel sits in Genazzano, Italy… The basilica’s website sheds light on the origin of this miraculous image, saying, “Prince Pietro Giordan Colonna, whose family had acquired lordship of the city, entrusted the church to the Augustinians in 1356. The notarial deed drawn up states that the church was a parish and was already called Santa Maria del Buon Consiglio. …”

By Kate Quiñones, Catholic News Agency – As artificial intelligence (AI) has become more widespread, a Catholic bioethics expert is warning against the dangers posed by it, saying it’s “not too late” to “put the genie back in the bottle” and avoid the worst effects of the new technology… Pope Leo XIV has already warned that AI could have negative effects on the development of young people and contribute to a “loss of the sense of the human.”… “He took the name Leo XIV to connect himself to Leo XIII, who himself was dealing with the Industrial Revolution of the late century, which totally transformed culture,” moral theologian Charles Camosy, a bioethics professor at the CUA …

By Fr. Robert McTeigue, SJ, Crisis Magazine – There’s good news and there’s bad news. The problem is that the good news isn’t very good, and we don’t know (yet?) how bad the bad news can be. Yes, you guessed it: I’m talking about “synodality.”.. The good news is that “synodality” might actually be meaningless. (That raises some questions about why, then, we are spending so much time, energy, and money on the topic; but let’s try to manage one conundrum at a time.) The bad news is that, precisely because “synodality” is a meaningless term (and “meaningless” will be defined below, shortly), it can be used to signify—or worse, justify—anything.

Fr. Robert McTeigue with Raymond Arroyo, EWTN, The World Over – Fr. Robert McTeigue, SJ talks about his recent column in Crisis Magazine, “What if ‘Synodality’ Means Nothing?”, and how this, one of the late Pope Francis’ signature initiatives, might carry forward into the reign of Pope Leo XIV. …

By Carl E. Olson, Catholic World Report – On December 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the doctrine that God the Father chose and prepared a Mother for his only begotten Son who was “ever absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect” and who “would possess that fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine anything greater…”… On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII declared as dogma the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin.

By Andrew Gondy, The American Spectator – The crises in Sudan are not abstract statistics; they are measured in skipped meals, improvised shelters, and miles walked to reach clean water. Millions suffer silently as foreign attention remains on Putin or Netanyahu, but Sudan still deserves our attention. A country so deeply broken will not be helped by a regime change or funneling money to evil militant factions, but by determined organizations trying to bridge the gap between what international agencies can provide and what communities actually need.

By James H. McGee, The American Spectator – What can we expect from the Alaska summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin? Is this the result of Trump’s recent pressure campaign and the potential ramping up of “sanctions,” even those by another name, such as the tariffs being levied on India? Is it war weariness in Russia, however difficult such a development is to discern? Does it reflect Putin’s belief that by pounding Ukraine relentlessly in the last several months, he’s created a framework for “taking the win”? Will it be merely symbolic, or can something genuine be achieved?

By Kennedy Hall, Crisis Magazine – Numerous Catholics have discovered Catholic Tradition in the last few years, many of them because of the lockdowns in 2020 that forced Catholics to think outside the box if they wanted to have access to sacraments. In addition, in 2020, liturgies were streamed online throughout that Holy Week, so many Catholics who had never given the Traditional Mass a second thought found themselves virtually engulfed in a ritual that was so Catholic and yet so foreign and different than what they had ever seen in their parishes.

By Rev. Peter M.J. Stravinskas, The Catholic Thing – The dogma of Mary’s Assumption, celebrated on August 15, teaches that the Lord’s Mother was taken into Heaven, body and soul, since no decay should touch the body of her who bore the Messiah. Christians believe “in the resurrection of the body.” And the doctrine of the Assumption merely asserts God’s acknowledgment of Mary’s worthiness to anticipate (from the earth-bound perspective of human time) the fullness of salvation as both Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church.

By John Zmirak, The Stream – Pushing back against the orchestrated force of elites in the U.S. and Western Europe, President Donald Trump is preparing to meet with Vladimir Putin today at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. Their goal? To end the war in Ukraine… Recall the deep roots of this war: An empty promise from the George H.W. Bush administration in the waning days of the Soviet Union that if Mikhael Gorbachev dissolved the Warsaw Pact, the U.S. wouldn’t push NATO westward toward Russia’s borders. We went on to break that pledge.

By Michael J. Mazza, Catholic World Report – On July 15, 2025, lawyers representing the Archdiocese filed with the Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana a list of non-financial commitments it is pledging to assume as part of its Chapter 11 reorganization. Such agreements are common in bankruptcy filings by Catholic dioceses that are largely the result of claims of clergy sexual abuse of minors. The particular promises made in these agreements, however, can vary in number, scope, and duration… Those made by the Archdiocese of New Orleans should cause every member of the faithful there grave concern—especially priests, seminarians, and their families and friends.

By Father Raymond J. de Souza, National Catholic Register – On Aug. 16, Leo XIV marks his first 100 days as pope, enjoying enormous goodwill in the world and in the Church. That was evident from the exuberant reception he received at the Jubilee of Youth in Rome… The Holy Father likely considers that goodwill itself a good thing, a time of comity and comfort in the Church. It may not last, but as long as it does, it is a blessing to be enjoyed. To that end, the first hundred days have been marked by steadiness in style and delayed decision-making.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 19:3-12 – 3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, `For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ….

By Franciscan Media, August 15 – On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII defined the Assumption of Mary to be a dogma of faith: “We pronounce, declare and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma that the immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul to heavenly glory.” The pope proclaimed this dogma only after a broad consultation of bishops, theologians and laity. …

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – Costco Wholesale Corp. has announced it will not dispense the abortion pill mifepristone at its U.S. pharmacies, a decision hailed by pro-life advocates as a significant victory. …The abortion pill has been responsible for killing millions of babies and killing and injuring countless women… The retail giant’s decision comes amid pressure from Christian investors and pro-life organizations urging major retailers to refrain from distributing the abortion drug.

By Susan Ciancio, Catholic World Report – Feasts or solemnities that prompt us to reflect on the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary also serve as reminders of the sacredness of motherhood. As Catholics, we know that Mary, our immaculate spiritual mother, looks upon us with love, compassion, and a protective kindness, just as she looked upon her beloved Son. Her virtuous life and her yes to God illustrate how we too must say yes to Him.

By Fr. Brian Harrison, One Peter Five, (Complicit Clergy) – Most Holy Father, I address to you this heartfelt petition regarding an urgent and practically unprecedented problem that Your Holiness has inherited from the previous pontificate. It is one which I and many other Catholics believe lies at the very heart of the mission entrusted to you by Our Lord as the Successor of Blessed Peter: that of guarding and teaching the uncorrupted doctrine of Christ that was “once and all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). ….

By Rob Sexton, Catholic Exchange – Like many of Christ’s words, the Litany of Humility is hard. Many of us could save a good deal of time in therapy or spiritual direction just by reading it, not even praying it with intention… It is much more than a pious practice or a “good idea” recommended by countless saints. The Litany of Humility acts as a kind of spiritual MRI, diagnosing the areas of your life where pride and its many children are growing or hold sway. Sincerely implementing this litany is a quick but sure way to diagnose this chief vice without spending hours in mental prayer or trying to find a spiritual director. ….

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – Summers are usually quiet around the Vatican. Most officials of the Roman Curia—like most other residents of Rome—leave the city for cooler vacation spots, leaving important policy decisions until the fall. This year, with a new Pontiff settling into his work, and the Catholic world anxiously waiting for indications of his plans, things seem even quieter than usual… But the summer days are already dwindling, the sun is setting earlier, and fall will soon be upon us. Rather than trying to read deep meanings into small papal gestures, and anticipate what Pope Leo could do, we might consider the questions that will certainly confront him in September.

By Tessa Gervasini, CNA – The GSS has asked a large representative sample of Americans a number of questions about religion for the past 50 years, which Rota and Bullivant analyzed to write “Religious Transmission: A Solution to the Church’s Biggest Problem,” published by Notre Dame’s Church Life Journal… In 1973, about 34% of participants raised Catholic were attending Mass weekly (or more often) when they were adults. By 2002, the number had fallen to 20%, and in 2022 it had fallen to 11%. …

By Carrie Gress, Ph.D., Catholic World Report – In 1917, during one of Our Lady’s apparitions at Fatima, the three shepherd children were given a vision of Hell. Our Lady warned that if people didn’t stop offending God then another war would come. In reparation, Our Lady asked “for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays.” She added, “If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church.”

Catholic Vote News Feed – The Little Sisters of the Poor are not exempt from providing contraception to staff, a federal court ruled Aug. 13, blocking conscience protections set in place by the Trump administration… The Sisters intend to appeal the decision, which is the latest episode in a long saga that began when the Obama administration’s Health and Human Services (HHS) Department mandated the Sisters must provide the drugs even though the Catholic Church opposes the use of contraception unless it is strictly intended to address medical problems. …

By Cassy Cooke, Live Action – Safety regulations on abortion pills have been increasingly relaxed in recent years, and now, a group of 22 attorneys general have sent a letter to the FDA asking for the previous protocols to be reinstated… a coalition of 22 Republican attorneys general, led by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, sent a letter to Kennedy and Makary requesting that the previous REMS requirements be reinstated, citing a recent analysis from the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), which found that women experience serious adverse complications at a rate 22 times higher than the rate reported on the FDA label for abortion pills. …

By Joachim Osther, The Stream – We shouldn’t be surprised by D.C.’s trend toward violence. What’s on full display is something deeper than political incompetence or mere malfeasance… The central issue is worldview — specifically, the collective American worldview slowly but pervasively shifting from being grounded in biblical truths to embracing secular atheism… Liberalism in America is now teeming with secular philosophy. Millions of Americans no longer believe in absolute moral truth. To them, good and evil are simply abstractions.

By J.C. Miller, Crisis Magazine – Approximately a quarter of Catholics are married to non-Catholics, even among those married in a Catholic parish. As detailed below, interfaith marriages are more likely to have marital problems and produce children who are less religious. Like anything that involves marriage, this can be a very sensitive topic. Those married to a non-Catholic may view even a discussion of this topic or the data as an assault on them or a criticism of their marriage.

By Hannah Hiester, Catholic Vote – The high school teacher who blew the whistle on allegations that Virginia’s Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) enabled a minor student’s abortion now says that she has raised concerns about the claims seven times since May 2022… CatholicVote previously reported that Zenaida Perez, a teacher at Centreville High School, met with a school investigator in May to tell him about the allegations that a school social worker facilitated one abortion for a student and tried to convince another to go through with an abortion. According to the claims, both students were minors at the time and their parents were not notified, violating Virginia law.

By Jordan Boyd, The Federalist – President Donald Trump had the presidential and legal authority to terminate billions of taxpayer dollars to the U.S Agency for International Development (USAID) and its countless overseas pet projects, the Washington D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed this week… Ever since Trump issued his day-one executive order effectively freezing USAID’s wasting of Americans’ hard-earned dollars, judges have encroached on his presidential authority by hampering his power to impound, or “decline to spend the full amount of an appropriated fund.”

The Editors, The National Catholic Register – Declining numbers of experienced priests, a shortage of new vocations to replace them as they retire, the forced consolidation of parishes in many dioceses due to diminished church attendance, heavy administrative responsibilities and isolating living conditions are among the serious hardships our priests experience on a continual basis. These issues are compounded by the diminished public esteem for the priestly vocation that is an inescapable consequence of the sexual-abuse scandals of recent decades.

Pope St. John Paul II – from his homily for the Solemnity of the Assumption, 1998, The Catholic Thing – Mary, glorified in her body, appears today as the star of hope for the Church and for humanity on its way towards the third Christian millennium. Her sublime exaltation does not distance her from her people or from the world’s problems, on the contrary, it enables her to watch effectively over human affairs with that attentive concern with which she obtained the first miracle from Jesus at the wedding in Cana. …

By Michael Pakaluk, The Catholic Thing – You probably know the basic facts of his death.  Like other religious in Poland, he was arrested and sent to Auschwitz.  There, a prisoner escaped, and the concentration camp guards, following their usual mode of reprisal, were going to put ten innocent prisoners to death, through starvation in the notorious torture box, the “Hunger Bunker.”  One unfortunate man, when he was picked out of the lineup, shouted out, “My wife, my children!” ….

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – As the world’s fertility rate plunges toward the replacement level, with every indication that they continue dropping, the mainstream media have belatedly noticed the danger that lies behind that trend. It’s bad for the economy… As we grow older, the workforce will shrink, since there won’t be enough younger people replacing those who retire. That in turn means a shortage of active wage-earners paying into the Social Security system to support the payments to their elders. More ominously, as we older people decline in health, and need more care, there won’t be enough young doctors and nurses to serve us.

By Fr. Shenan J. Boquet, Human Life International – In a world fractured by individualism, instability, and cultural confusion, it is the family that possesses the power to heal. At least, that’s what the Catholic Church has continually taught, particularly in recent decades as attacks on the family have increased, and as so many families have broken apart, causing untold suffering and confusion… Pope St. John Paul II, in his apostolic exhortation Familiaris consortio, wrote: “The future of humanity passes by way of the family” (no. 86). Elsewhere in the same document he calls the family the “first and vital cell of society” (no. 42). …

By Tyler O’Neil, The Daily Signal – When students return to Christiansburg High School for classes on Wednesday, they’ll find at least one large “open plan” gender-neutral and multiple-stall bathroom… Parents are raising the alarm… “I would have been mortified at that age,” Alecia Vaught, 49, who has two grandchildren at the southwestern Virginia school, told The Daily Signal about the bathroom situation… The Daily Signal obtained photos of signs with symbols depicting a woman, a man, a half-man/half-woman, and a wheelchair. ….

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 18:15-20 – 15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. …

By Brian Freeman, Newsmax – After announcing on Monday that he was taking federal control of the police department in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump insinuated in the White House briefing room that five other cities could face a similar effort from his administration, Newsweek reported… Trump said the attempt to address crime and homelessness would “go further” than D.C.,  as he specifically named Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Oakland, California… “We have other cities also that are bad. Very bad,” Trump said during the press conference …

By Emmy Griffin, Patriot Post – Jonathan Haidt, professor of social psychology at New York University (NYU) Stern School of Business, is a crusader for getting kids off screens. As a front-line witness to his students’ social shift from friend groups to being utterly lost in the online world, he has advocated for getting cellphones out of schools. In his most recent published research with Zach Rausch, an NYU colleague, and Lenore Skenazy, co-founder of the nonprofit Let Grow, whose mission is to promote childhood independence, the trio teamed up with Harris Poll to find out what kids desire as an alternative to being on their phones.

By Susan Berry, Ph.D., Catholic Vote – Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on Friday announced the repeal of federal regulations that he said have led to “corrupt medical judgment” by allowing specific patient treatments to be financially incentivized… In a video message posted to social media, Kennedy asked Americans: “Should doctors make decisions based upon what’s best for their patients or based upon what makes them the most money?” …

By Devin Dwyer, ABC – Ten years after the Supreme Court extended marriage rights to same-sex couples nationwide, the justices this fall will consider for the first time whether to take up a case that explicitly asks them to overturn that decision… Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for six days in 2015 after refusing to issue marriage licenses to a gay couple on religious grounds, is appealing a $100,000 jury verdict for emotional damages plus $260,000 for attorneys fees… In a petition for writ of certiorari filed last month, Davis argues First Amendment protection for free exercise of religion immunizes her from personal liability for the denial of marriage licenses.

By Casey Chalk, The Federalist – What do you get when you marry victimhood and narcissistic self-worship? Today’s woke ideologue journalist. For it is left-wing journalists resting upon their precarious perch in corporate legacy media who, despite… wealth and influence, believe they are actually victims worthy of America’s sympathy and support… They are the oppressed, beleaguered heroes keeping the fires of truth burning in these dark days of reinvigorated conservative cultural and political dominance, waging a fearless battle against patriarchy and racism. They also happen to have sufficient wealth and free time to indulge in some of the priciest and most self-absorbed activities that define our digital age.

By William Kilpatrick, The Stream – Much of the world’s media now seems to agree that Israel is deliberately starving the people of Gaza. Many Catholic media outlets are saying the same thing. This is a very serious charge, and I think Catholics should be careful about jumping to conclusions about this complicated situation… Not that there is no food crisis in Gaza. There is. Yet it’s widely acknowledged by Mid-East experts that if the people of Gaza aren’t getting enough to eat, the fault lies mostly with Hamas, not Israel. For years, Hamas has been intercepting aid supply trucks, stealing the cargo, and using it to feed their own families and fighters. Then they take what they don’t need and sell it to ordinary Gazans at exorbitant prices. …

By Devin Schadt,. Catholic Exchange – It was seven years into my marriage and five years into being a father that I realized I didn’t know what I was doing (that’s putting it mildly)… A year prior to being married, I had surrendered my life to Our Lord Jesus. Nevertheless, I worked around the clock to impress my employer while attempting to launch a start-up graphic design agency, and in my “spare time” serve as a part-time youth director at our local parish. Meanwhile, I placed my marriage and new family on the back burner.

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky, Catholic Culture – Identifying and articulating our sins isn’t easy. We usually need a date with the confessional to manifest our repentance with integrity. We may stumble about in Confession as we grasp for the right words and context. We distinguish between the effects of Original Sin (sinful inclinations) and sinful actions. Feelings of anger are not necessarily immoral. God designed the emotion of anger to impel us to seek justice. But Original Sin disfigures anger; we often satisfy an angry heart with acts of unjust vengeance.

By Samantha Flom, The American Spectator – In any other context, the buying and selling of children would be rightly reviled. Yet when it comes to commercial surrogacy, many turn a blind eye… To be clear, babies are certainly worth celebrating — especially in an increasingly selfish society that depicts parenthood as a form of punishment. But not all methods of conception are created equal… With gestational surrogacy, babies created in labs are implanted into the wombs of women who are of no relation to them. Nine months later, the child gets ripped from the arms of the person who has become their entire world and sent home with strangers — people with whom they may share DNA but nothing more.   …

By Edward Pentin, The National Catholic Register – From his actions and words so far, Pope Leo XIV has displayed a strong Marian devotion reminiscent of his namesake predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, raising hopes that perhaps Leo XIV will proclaim the long awaited and long petitioned proclamation of a fifth Marian dogma… These are observations of Mariologist Mark Miravalle, a professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, who has been struck by the clear and profound Marian references Leo XIV has made in these first 100 days of his pontificate.

By Dave Andrusko, LifeNews – On Monday, in a 31 page decision, the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld the state’s highly protective 2022 abortion law, finding that it did not violate the “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” clause of the Indiana Constitution… The opinion was authored by Judge Paul Mathias. Chief Judge Robert Altice and Judge Mary DeBoer concurred in the unanimous decision which upheld the September 2024 ruling by Judge Kelsey Blake Hanlon… Senate Bill 1 passed in a 62 to 38 vote in the House, by 28-19 in the Senate, and was signed into law by Gov. Eric Holcomb.

By Jason Jones, Crisis Magazine – A coordinated campaign by law enforcement officials, Hindu activists, and extremist politicians is deploying draconian anti-conversion laws to systematically target Christians across India, according to a new report published by the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI)… The EFI report follows national outrage over the arrests of two nuns who were falsely accused of human trafficking and forced conversion. The sisters were released on bail amid revelations that militant Hindus tortured a young girl into making false statements against the nuns. …

By Diaa Ostaz, CNEWA, Gaza, Vatican News – The streets of Gaza are quieter than they used to be — not because peace has returned. The deep silence of hunger has replaced the noise of daily life. Every corner bears the marks of a deepening humanitarian catastrophe: gaunt faces of children, long lines at makeshift aid points and parents who have nothing left to give but words of comfort and prayer… The humanitarian collapse in Gaza did not happen overnight. On 2 March 2025, the Israeli Defense Forces sealed all crossings into the enclave — 16 days before the collapse of the temporary cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. …

Franciscan Media – The eldest son of an immigrant Irish family in Connecticut, young Michael left school at 13 to work in a brass factory making spoons. At 16 he began studies for the priesthood in Quebec, but was obliged to leave to help support the family when his father died. Michael completed his education in Baltimore, Maryland, and was ordained for the diocese of Hartford in 1877.

By Daniel Payne, National Catholic Register – Christine Williams… urged young Catholic husbands and wives to “be assured God wants what is good for you and your marriage.”… “Your fertility is a gift,” she said. “To cooperate with God in bringing life into the world is a great, unrepeatable miracle.”… She urged couples to “be open to one more child,” to “study the Church’s teachings,” and to “find a friend group that can be a source of support when days are hard.”… “Hard days will come and go,” she said. “Bring your basket. He will bless your efforts.” ….

By Craig Bannister, MRC TV – “Only cowards run to blue states,” Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott said Sunday, blasting Democrat state House members who fled the state to prevent a vote on Congressional redistricting… “Texas Democrats didn’t stand and fight—they fled, obstructing critical state business for hardworking Texans,” Gov. Abbott wrote in a social media post introducing video from an interview discussing how the Democrats are hiding out in Democrat-run (“blue”) states… “This is the most un-Texan thing we’ve ever seen,” Gov. Abbott told Fox News Sunday ….

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 18:1-5, 10, 12-14 – 1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them, 3 and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; ….

By Emmy Griffin, Patriot Post – Being married and owning a home by age 30 is a rarity in 2025. In other words, the American Dream is slipping away. Here’s what happened, as well as some solutions… In the 1950s, being married and owning a home in your 30s was extremely common. The rate of occurrence was over 50%. Since then, however, the rate of homeownership for this demographic has dropped drastically. According to government data, this type of person today is a rarity, only accounting for 15% of the American population.

By Virginia Allen, The Daily Signal – President Donald Trump announced Monday he’s taking decisive action to reduce crime in Washington, D.C., drawing attention to violent crime rates not only in the nation’s capital, but in major cities across the U.S… “We have other cities that are very bad—New York has a problem, and then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland,” Trump said at a White House press conference Monday morning to announce that the federal government is taking control of the D.C. police in an effort to crack down on crime… “We’re not going to lose our cities over this,” Trump said, referring to crime. …

By Monica Miller, Crisis Magazine – The most common mistake nearly all feminist theologians make is that women will never be equal to men unless they stand in the sanctuary alongside priests, as if the sanctuary was the great equalizer. But as shown here, the dignity of women is already secured in their being the sign of the Bridal Church to Christ. And frankly, as never before, all sorts of ministries are open to women, who in various capacities exercise tremendous authority in the Church, some even occupying the position of diocesan chancellor and heading certain Vatican departments …

By John Zmirak, The Stream – Without all the mob violence, robberies, and rapes, won’t Washington, D.C., lose half its charm? Can we really call ourselves a civilized society if our nation’s capital doesn’t rack up a higher murder rate than Mexico City or Nairobi? Does President Donald Trump think that D.C. residents are wimps, that they can’t tolerate a few thousand felonies every year, as the price of … well, what exactly?

By Laura Echevarria, LifeNews – The National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) submitted formal comments to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) strongly opposing three separate citizen petitions filed by abortion advocates and allied states that oppose any efforts to strengthen safety protocols and seek to remove the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) safety requirements for the abortion drug mifepristone… National Right to Life also called on the FDA to reverse its approval of mifepristone. …

By Raymond Arroyo, Prayerful Posse, Youtube – Why are young Catholics flocking to the Traditional Latin Mass? In this powerful and deeply moving episode of The Prayerful Posse, Raymond Arroyo welcomes Cardinal Raymond Burke—on the 50th anniversary of his priesthood—for a candid and illuminating conversation about the beauty, reverence, and spiritual depth of the ancient Roman Rite. Cardinal Burke explains how the Latin Mass offers a transcendent encounter with Christ, why facing East matters, and how sacred music like Gregorian chant roots us in centuries of worship. …

By Carole Novielli, LiveAction – Virtual abortion pill business Aid Access, its founder Rebecca Gomperts, and Christopher Cooprider have been slapped with a wrongful death lawsuit for the forced chemical abortion that killed the child of a Texas woman against her will… The complaint, filed by Texas attorney Jonathan Mitchell on behalf of Liana Davis, alleges that the defendants violated the federal Comstock Act and committed “felony murder,” among other violations… “Christopher Cooprider murdered Liana Davis’s unborn child by secretly dissolving abortion pills into a hot beverage that he had prepared and tricking Davis into drinking it,” the complaint alleges.

By Brianna Lyman, The Federalist – To be clear, illegal aliens are already reshaping our political landscape without formal citizenship. Congressional apportionment and Electoral College votes are based on population — not citizenship. Blue states that have incentivized mass illegal migration and policies get increased representation and can dilute the representation that American citizens have. Rep. Yvette Clark, D-N.Y., said as much in 2021 that her district could “absorb a significant number of these migrants” because “I need more people in my district, just for redistricting purposes.”

By Franciscan Media, August 12 – Jane Frances was wife, mother, nun, and founder of a religious community. Her mother died when she was 18 months old, and her father, head of parliament at Dijon, France, became the main influence on her education. Jane developed into a woman of beauty and refinement, lively and cheerful in temperament. At 21, she married Baron de Chantal, by whom she had six children, three of whom died in infancy. At her castle, she restored the custom of daily Mass, and was seriously engaged in various charitable works. …

By Fr. Nnamdi Moneme, OMV, Catholic Exchange – Firstly, the man is foolish because he seeks direction from himself and not from God. When his land produces a bountiful harvest, we are told that “he asked himself, ‘What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest.’” You can hear the self-centeredness and self-reliance in his words. He does not see the hand of divine providence in his abundant harvest. It does not occur to him that God has given him all his wealth for a purpose. He makes up his own purpose and does not bother to ask God how He wants him to make use of all his blessings.

By John M. Grondelski, The Catholic Thing – In a recent essay,  I defended Pope St. John Paul II’s emphasis on Jesus Christ as the revelation of man to himself.  If the human person wants to know what he is supposed to be, he needs to look to Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, who reveal what humanity without sin should look like… John Paul’s pontificate focused on Christian humanism because he rightly recognized that the problem of man was the problem of our times.  No Archbishop whose archdiocese was under Soviet occupation (his included Auschwitz-Birkenau) could deny that. …

By Simon Olech, Campus Reform, (Complicit Clergy) – The University of San Diego (USD), a Catholic institution, is advancing a broad slate of gender ideology initiatives through its official policies, housing, and staff training programs… The school’s “Guidelines for Gender Inclusive Design” instruct faculty and staff to adapt all programming and marketing to avoid causing “a painful reminder” for individuals in the LGBTQIA+ community… The guidelines recommend that pronouns such as “they/them/theirs” be standard on university forms and appear “all the time.”

By Shawn Fleetwood, The Federalist – The ideal outcome in Louisiana v. Callais would be for SCOTUS to definitively declare that ‘race should never be a factor in redistricting,’ Hans von Spakovsky said… While the battle between Republican- and Democrat-led states to redistrict ahead of the 2026 midterm continues to heat up, a case with major implications for the issue is quietly flying under the radar at the U.S. Supreme Court.

By Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell, LifeNews – House Republicans kept almost a billion dollars in funding for an agency targeted by the Department of Government Efficiency after the Biden administration used it to promote abortion in Africa… In April, Millennium Challenge Corporation employees received an email that they would be offered early retirement or deferred resignation after visits from DOGE, The New York Times reported.

By Paul Tilsley, Fox News – The White House, faced with an ongoing and growing tsunami of murderous attacks by Islamic State-allied groups against Christians in sub-Saharan Africa, is now working closely with the State Department to find ways to stop the killing… Last week, the White House told Fox News Digital, “The Trump administration condemns in the strongest terms this horrific violence against Christians,” after the U.N. reported 49 Christians were butchered with machetes on July 27 in and around a church in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), while Catholic worshipers were praying for peace. …

By David Hammer of WWL Louisiana in New Orleans, Posted on The Guardian – Documents filed recently in the New Orleans Roman Catholic archdiocese’s five-year bankruptcy case provide more clarity on how claims will be doled out to victims of clergy abuse if a proposed settlement is approved. Points will be assigned to each abuse claim based on the severity of the abuse and its effects on each victim’s life… Claims that a Catholic church employee raped them will be worth twice as much money to abuse survivors as having a priest masturbate in front of them, four times more than if a cleric touched them under their clothes and seven times more than being shown pornography, according to details from a settlement disclosure statement filed and amended recently.

Franciscan Media – One of the more sugary movies made about Francis of Assisi pictures Clare as a golden-haired beauty floating through sun-drenched fields, a sort of one-woman counterpart to the new Franciscan Order… The beginning of her religious life was indeed movie material. Having refused to marry at 15, Clare was moved by the dynamic preaching of Francis. He became her lifelong friend and spiritual guide.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 17:22-27 – 22 As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men, 23 and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” And they were greatly distressed. 24 When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the half-shekel tax went up to Peter and said, “Does not your teacher pay the tax?” 25 He said, “Yes.” And when he came home, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tribute?

By JJ Carrell, Complicit Clergy – I am a Catholic. I love my faith, and I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. I believe in the Catholic doctrines, and my faith plays an important role in my life. That said, I place no trust in the facilitators of my faith, who have been at odds with my career as a Border Patrol Agent and what I believe is the most important issue facing our republic: illegal immigration. The number one NGO in partnership with the United States government for “refugee resettlement” is the Catholic Church. “Refugee resettlement” encompasses every aspect of illegal immigration from lobbying our government for open borders, relocating these illegal aliens across the US and the cost of resettling these individuals in our communities. Refugee resettlement is inclusive of every illegal alien no matter what their immigration situation.

By Francesca Pollio Fenton, Catholic News Agency – While many know him best for his popular “Bible in a Year” podcast, Ascension videos, and inspiring talks he gives across the country, Father Mike Schmitz is first and foremost the chaplain at the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota, Duluth (UMD)… This fall Schmitz will mark his 21st year working in campus ministry, which he called “the best of both worlds” in a recent sit-down interview with CNA in Vail, Colorado, during his Parables Tour. The tour is part of Schmitz’s Seeds of Faith Campaign, which is raising funds for a new Newman Center to be built on the UMD campus.

By John Zmirak, The Stream – As I’ve been writing here for years, the Swamp Republicans are every bit as dangerous as the Democrats — and in some ways worse, just like a squatter who lives in your house, eats out of your fridge, and crawls into your bed is worse than a hateful neighbor. I made Right Wing Watch last week for pointing out that Senators Lindsay Graham and John McCain were in on the Russia Collusion hoax… Now General Mike Flynn is calling for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to summon former Vice President Mike Pence to testify before Congress about his alleged role in efforts to oust President Donald Trump by using the 25th Amendment.

By Peter Parisi, The Daily Signal – While out of one side of their mouths, the Left lionizes illegals as latter-day huddled masses yearning to breathe free, these same leftists speak of the migrants in ways that are condescending or at best utilitarian, even as they fight to block President Donald Trump from deporting them back to their countries of origin… Most of these liberals, in unscripted moments, appear to be less concerned about the well-being of the millions of illegals the Biden administration allowed to pour into our country unvetted and more concerned about their food supply ….

By Bénédicte Cedergren, National Catholic Register – In rural locales, young Catholics are rediscovering faith and tradition by restoring crumbling convents and chapels under the guidance of priests from the Institute of the Good Shepherd… A 19th-century convent, long forgotten and in disrepair, is now being restored thanks to the efforts of a group of young people and the dedication of a Catholic priest.

By Mark Haas, Crisis Magazine – In many Catholic parishes and schools today, it has become common to designate specific “themes” for Mass. A Wednesday morning school Mass might revolve around a theme such as light, joy, kindness, or unity. Students and teachers are often asked to help prepare a “Liturgy Sheet,” complete with song choices, Scripture selections, and, of course, a clear and catchy “theme.” Banners might be created, songs selected, and even suggestions (from lay people) of the direction of the homily—all to align with the “theme” of the day.

By Anne Hendershott, Catholic World Report – While Republican pro-life policies are most often blamed for—or credited with—the shuttering of 37 Planned Parenthood abortion clinics since January 2025, the reasons for the closures are more complex than defunding abortion through H. R. 271: The Defund Planned Parenthood Act of 2025… Abortion facility closures began long before the 2025 legislation and have as much to do with the availability of easy access to medication abortion as with any attempt by the Trump administration to restrict abortion funding to Planned Parenthood centers.

By Georgena Habbaba, ACI MENA, (CNA) – Eleven years have passed since ISIS seized Mosul and the Nineveh towns and with every anniversary commemorated each year, the same question arises: How many Iraqi Christians remain?… Despite tensions and renewed challenges from regional conflict, Iraqi churches remain full. Just weeks ago, Christians there celebrated joyfully as 1,000 young boys and girls received their first Communion…. In Iraq’s capital, Chaldean parishes celebrated first Communion for 50 children, while 32 others received the sacrament at the Syriac Catholic parish. …

By Bishop Joseph Strickland, Substack – … before we speak of peace, we must acknowledge this – life is not a gentle stream – it is often a storm. We are not promised comfort, but the Cross. We live in a world where souls are burdened by grief, betrayal, illness, and fear. And so, the question is not whether suffering will come – it will – but whether our hearts will be anchored when it does. Can we say with the saints, not why, but Thy will be done.

By M.C. Holbrook, Catholic Exchange – Edith Stein was born in 1891, the youngest of eleven children, at a time when the continent of Europe was on the cusp of entering two world wars. Many of us know her story: raised in the Jewish faith, Edith later converted to Catholicism after reading the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila. She discerned a call to the religious life, and eventually became a Carmelite nun, taking the name, “Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.” St. Benedicta of the Cross died a martyr in 1942, when the Nazis ambushed her convent and sent her to the concentration camp in Auschwitz. She was killed in the gas chamber.

By Kathy Schiffer, National Catholic Register – Catholics believe that salvation is a gift from God, received through faith and baptism, and lived out through charity and good works… But members of many Protestant denominations have a different idea. They believe that you need only to believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved (that is, you will be welcomed into heaven). As evidence, our Protestant brothers and sisters rely on a few notable Scripture verses: In Acts 16:31, for example, Paul and Silas explain to the Philippian jailer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Aug. 7 aimed at ending political and religious discrimination in the banking industry… The order directs federal banking regulators to eliminate policies that allow financial institutions to deny services based on so-called “reputational risk” and other concepts “that enable politicized or unlawful debanking,” according to an Aug. 7 White House statement… In the statement, Trump said banks “discriminate against conservatives” and “religion because they’re afraid of the radical left.” …

By Neil Munro, Bretibart – U.S. Catholic Bishops are citing Nazis, slave catchers, and replacement babies as they try to slam President Donald Trump’s popular immigration policies… The bishops are also urging open borders, parroting cheap-labor demands from business groups, and pretending that illegal migrants are not illegal… One Bishop is even endorsing President George W. Bush’s “Any Willing Worker” migration policies as an alternative to Trump’s pro-prosperity policies. …

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 17:14-20 – 14 And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and kneeling before him said, 15 “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly; for often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. 16 And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” 17 And Jesus answered, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you? ….

By Elise Winland, Catholic Vote – President Donald Trump has ordered federal law enforcement to assist in policing Washington, DC, in what the White House calls a response to violent crime in the nation’s capital… “President Trump has directed an increased presence of federal law enforcement to protect innocent citizens,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an Aug. 7 statement, according to POLITICO. “Starting tonight, there will be no safe harbor for violent criminals in D.C.” …

 By Richard A. Spinello and Elizabeth A. Mitchell, The Catholic Thing – Controversies continue over the nature and role of women as modern society edges ever closer to embracing an androgynous anthropology. During the last Olympic Games, spectators were exposed to the surreal exhibition of biological males pummeling women boxers. Those who protested were informed that there is no scientific way to differentiate men from women. …

By Peter Wolfgang, Catholic Culture – August 6th was National Lecture Your Fellow Catholics on Facebook Day. If your newsfeed looks anything like mine, you’re thinking to yourself, “Isn’t every day?” But I mean something specific. August 6th was the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima… Every year, without fail, my newsfeed on Aug. 6th is gummed up with Facebook friends reminding their fellow Catholics that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was immoral. The justifications for it smack of consequentialism, proportionalism, etc. Errors that are condemned as such in Catholic moral theology.

Franciscan Media – A brilliant philosopher who stopped believing in God when she was 14, Edith Stein was so captivated by reading the autobiography of Teresa of Avila that she began a spiritual journey that led to her baptism in 1922. Twelve years later she imitated Saint Teresa by becoming a Carmelite, taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

By John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist – Mass deportation of illegal immigrants is not enough to save America. We have to recover an insistence on assimilation… There’s a bit more to say about Democrat Illinois Rep. Delia Ramírez, who in her recent opening remarks at the second annual Panamerican Congress in Mexico City declared (in Spanish), “I am a proud Guatemalan before I am American.”… You might think, as I initially did, that Ramírez is an immigrant from Guatemala. But she was actually born in Chicago. Her mother illegally entered the United States by crossing the Rio Grande while she was pregnant, which gave Ramírez birthright citizenship. In common parlance, she’s an “anchor baby.”

By Elise Winland, LifeNews – In another major pro-life victory, Planned Parenthood said it will shut down its clinics in Louisiana Sept. 30 after losing access to federal funding under President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”… Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, said on X that he has “fought hard as Attorney General and now as Governor to rid our state of this failed organization.”… He added, “Abortion should NEVER be considered healthcare.”

By Alexander Folz, Catholic World Report – Few religious artifacts have been studied and debated as extensively as the Shroud of Turin… Countless Catholics and other Christians across the world believe it is the authentic burial cloth of Jesus Christ, wrapped around his body after his crucifixion and marked by his unmistakable visage and form… Critics, meanwhile, have for years alleged that it is nothing more than a forgery — a clever work of religious art and an impressive technical feat that carries no more or less religious significance than a painting or statue.

By John Zmirak, The Stream – While of course I want those arrested for immigration crimes provided with chaplains like any other prisoners, I did raise a couple of questions: Did the Knights do this for January 6 detainees? Do they do it for Operation Rescue detainees?… Dozens of J6 prisoners were held in solitary confinement for months for nonviolent offenses before trial. From our bishops: crickets. … In Biden’s last year in office, some 400,000 young (children) immigrants were simply lost in our country, sent to unvetted sponsors… When all that child exploitation was happening on a mass scale, which U.S. bishops denounced it? …

By Carole Novielli, LiveAction – As the American Life League’s (ALL) 2025 Planned Parenthood facilities report explained: The main difference between virtual health centers and telehealth visits is that the virtual health center is operated by a state’s Planned Parenthood affiliate, and only customers living in that specific state can make these appointments. For example, the Virginia League Virtual Health Center website states that “you must be located in Virginia to receive virtual care or medications.” …..

By Craig Bannister, MRC TV – “The Texas Supreme Court has now ordered the runaway ring leader of the derelict Democrats to respond to my lawsuit by Friday,” Rep. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Tuesday, providing an update on his effort to remove a Texas House member who fled the state… More than fifty Texas House Dems, among them Rep. Gene Wu, left the state Sunday in order to deny Republicans the quorum needed to conduct legislative business and approve Congressional map redistricting.

By Shaun McAfee, Catholic Exchange – As the Church celebrates the feast of St. Dominic, we are reminded not only of the man—the preacher, the founder, the father of the Order of Preachers—but also of the weapon he wielded in defense of truth: the Holy Rosary. Although its exact origins are in disagreement with some historians, what is beyond dispute is the Rosary’s deep association with Dominic and his mission to confront the great heresies of his time, especially the Cathars, or Albigensians, whose dualistic worldview threatened the foundations of Christian belief.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 16:24-28 – 24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life? …

Patriot Post – “The pyramid of government — and a republican government may well receive that beautiful and solid form — should be raised to a dignified altitude: but its foundations must, of consequence, be broad, and strong, and deep. The authority, the interests, and the affections of the people at large are the only foundation, on which a superstructure proposed to be at once durable and magnificent, can be rationally erected.” —James Wilson (1804)

By Brianna Lyman, The Federalist – President Donald Trump announced Thursday he instructed the Commerce Department to begin working on a census that does not include illegal aliens. It’s a long-overdue correction to a system that Democrats have exploited for years to tip the balance of power in Washington… “I have instructed our Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024. People who are in our country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Trump said.

By Austin Ruse, Crisis Magazine – “We are so back” is a current meme indicating how some part of “woke” culture has been pushed back, but even the most anti-woke conservatives stand defenseless against gay culture… One of my favorite homosexuals of all time was Justin Raimondo, founder of Antiwar.com and author of the 2008 book Reclaiming the American Right, who once said that the best thing about being homosexual was all the sneaking around. That was when there was a closet; ahh, the closet.

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture – The paradoxical reality is that we actually want the world not to make sense to people without Christ. We want people to feel confused and unhappy and trapped in a world without Christ. These distressing situations are actually the predictable results of our fallen condition. This is what it means to experience reality without a savior. But the Christian’s role is to affirm to those who are troubled and confused that, while their situation is predictable, it is not final, it is not ultimate, and in fact it is missing the most important factor. …

By David Warren, The Catholic Thing – Like the Founding Fathers of America, (Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805)) is, in fact, suspicious of democracy. Right and wrong are discernible in nature. The republic that God smiles upon will be favorable to the right, and will advance righteous interests. It will not be indifferent to the making of good men. It will be naturally opposed to men who are evil. It will be at the service of men who are free… Being free, therefore, does not mean simply having the vote. It rather means not having a vote for the purpose of creating our rational and moral realities. It means rather leaving to God – or to “The Absolute” – what is in God’s realm.

By Franciscan Media – If he hadn’t taken a trip with his bishop, Dominic would probably have remained within the structure of contemplative life; after the trip, he spent the rest of his life being a contemplative in active apostolic work… Born in old Castile, Spain, Dominic was trained for the priesthood by a priest-uncle, studied the arts and theology, and became a canon of the cathedral at Osma, where there was an attempt to revive the apostolic common life described in Acts of the Apostles.

By Elise Winland, Catholic Vote – The Trump administration’s US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said Aug. 4 it will stop issuing visas to men seeking to compete in women’s sports, closing a loophole that allowed foreign athletes to act against the administration’s goal of protecting female athletes… Matthew Tragesser, a spokesperson for USCIS, said in a press release that the new policy is “a matter of safety, fairness, respect, and truth,” ensuring that “only female athletes receive a visa to come to the U.S. to participate in women’s sports.”… “Men do not belong in women’s sports,” Tragesser said. …

By Newsmax Wires, Newsmax – President Donald Trump said Thursday he has directed the Department of Commerce to launch preparations for a new and “highly accurate” national census, according to a post to his Truth Social account.
The president said the count would reflect current information, incorporate data from the 2024 presidential election, and explicitly exclude individuals residing in the U.S.
“I have instructed our Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024,” his post read. “People who are in our Country illegally WILL NOT BE COUNTED IN THE CENSUS….”

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 16:13-1913 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do men say that the Son of man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon BarJona! ….

Fr. Kevin Drew, Catholic Exchange – (In 1935 Pope Pius XI)… wrote that, in 1936, around 6,800 priests, religious, and nuns in Spain were murdered by communists. In accordance with Marxist ideology, these communists promised that man could break his chains and live in an earthly paradise if only private property, marriage, and the family were destroyed. Communism’s archenemy then was the great defender of marriage and the family: the Church.  Beyond this example, history shows time and time again that wherever communism takes hold, the Church is brutally suppressed.

By Ashlynn Lemos, LifeNews – In a surprising twist, Hollywood has produced something Pro-Life—and the Left can’t handle it… The new Fantastic Four reboot has sparked backlash from anti-Lifers for centering the film on something innocent: a baby… Yes, the latest Marvel blockbuster is pro-baby, pro-family, and pro-motherhood. And that’s exactly what makes it so powerful… The film opens with a heartwarming scene—Sue Storm, played by Vanessa Kirby, is pregnant after years of infertility.

By Gary Bauer, Patriot Post – Texas Democrat legislators have essentially shut down the legislature… Texas Democrats are really proud of themselves for fleeing their state to prevent the passage of a new congressional redistricting plan… By preventing a quorum, they have essentially shut down the legislature… Among the 18 critical issues Gov. Abbott asked the special session to address was legislation improving emergency flood warning systems and providing financial relief to help the victims of the deadly July 4th floods.

By Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register – Dutch Cardinal Willem Eijk has warmly praised Cardinal Raymond Burke for the way he has endured attacks for proclaiming the fullness of the Catholic faith, saying that his example imitates Christ’s suffering and opens the way to heaven… Preaching at a July 31 Mass to celebrate Cardinal Burke’s founding of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin, in 2008, the cardinal archbishop of Utrecht held up the American cardinal as “an exemplary priest, an outstanding canonist, a prophet of canon law.”

By Anthony Esolen, Crisis Magazine – To say that the Church’s social teaching is separate from her teachings regarding sex is to get each one of them wrong—and to fail to recognize the sociality of the truths themselves… As readers here must know, the Archbishop of Detroit, Edward Weisenburger, has fired three longtime professors of philosophy and theology at the archdiocese’s seminary, Sacred Heart. The firing took the professors by surprise. He has given no reason for it, except to say that he disagrees with their theology. I do not know what that means, nor does the archbishop seem to intend to tell us what it means.

By Elise Winland, Catholic Vote – Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott filed an emergency lawsuit with the state Supreme Court the evening of Aug. 5, seeking to remove House Democrats who fled the Lone Star state two days earlier to block a Republican-led redistricting plan… Abbott accused House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Gene Wu of leading the walkout and abandoning the districts that lawmakers are supposed to represent. The lawsuit invokes a writ of quo warranto, a legal action that challenges a person’s right to hold public office… The court ordered Wu to respond to the lawsuit by 5 p.m. Aug. 8, Abbott said. …

By Sam Barron, Newsmax – Under the Biden administration, the average American household lost nearly $1,100 of spending power a month, Scott said… “Why? Because the Democrats spent more than $4 trillion trying to solve a problem they created,” Scott said on “Rob Schmitt Tonight.” Ultimately it led to 9% inflation and interest rates so high that today, the average first time home buyer is 38 years old. Having a candidate running here in New York City on socialism is as clearly misguided as their last election attempt.”

By Jordan Boyd, The Federalist – “Love your spouse and share the Gospel.” Those were the wise words my Poppy uttered to a private dining room packed with his kids, grandkids, and great-grandchild last weekend… For 60 years, my Poppy and Grammy… have not only kept their covenant to cherish each other, but witnessed their legacy of love continue with the weddings of both of their children and four of their 10 grandchildren… They will be the first to tell you that their marriage is not perfect or easy. …

By Carol Tobias, LifeNews – As has been discussed for several weeks now, Congress passed, and President Trump signed, legislation to remove funding from Planned Parenthood for one year… The VA has proposed a rule that would overturn a Biden-era rule that established VA hospitals as abortion facilities… The Dept. HHS has announced sweeping reforms to the organ transplant system. Horrifying reports have surfaced with stories of patients who were still alive even as their organs were in the initial stages of being removed! ….

By Ngala Killian Chimtom, Catholic World Report – The Pan-African Catholic Jubilee on Theology, Society, and Pastoral Life, convening from August 5th to 10th, comes at a particularly crucial moment for African Catholics… The third Pan-African Catholic Jubilee on Theology, Society, and Pastoral Life opened August 5 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, bringing together the continent’s largest assembly of African Catholic theologians, pastors, lay leaders, and others.

By Franciscan Media – Like most of us, Cajetan seemed headed for an “ordinary” life—first as a lawyer, then as a priest engaged in the work of the Roman Curia… His life took a characteristic turn when he joined the Oratory of Divine Love in Rome, a group devoted to piety and charity, shortly after his ordination at 36. When he was 42 he founded a hospital for incurables at Venice.

Source: Tri City Record, by Staff, (Complicit Clergy) – The Catholic Church’s handling of decades-old sexual abuse allegations involving priests who served in southern New Mexico and West Texas has again come under scrutiny. Eight new lawsuits against the Diocese of Las Cruces and the Diocese of El Paso allege that church officials knowingly concealed child abuse to protect the institution’s reputation… The lawsuits, filed by the Davis Kelin Law Firm and Huffman Wallace & Monagle, allege systemic abuse of minors spanning more than three decades – from 1956 to 1990 – involving children aged 3 to 15.

By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews – The Planned Parenthood abortion business will close two centers in Louisiana – adding to the list of dozens of abortion facilities the company has closed in the wake of the One Big Beautiful Bill that defunded it… Both Planned Parenthood facilities in Louisiana will close their doors effective September 30, making it so the state with be free of the abortion business… Notably, the New Orleans facility was constructed with the stated goal of becoming a regional abortion center, intending to perform nearly 2,844 abortions per year. With Louisiana banning abortions, babies across the state are protected and that goal was not achieved. …

By Fr. Shenan J. Boquet, Human Life International – In recent years, birth rates all over the globe have been falling precipitously. The drop in birth rates has been especially dramatic in developed nations, many of which fell far below replacement birth rates decades ago… During this time, however, there is one developed nation that conspicuously resisted the trend. In the United States, fertility rates continued to hover near the replacement level throughout the 90s and early 2000s… Sadly, in recent years this has changed…dramatically. …

By Francis X. Maier, The Catholic Thing – If you don’t know about Waymo, the autonomous taxi service, now’s the time to learn, because it’s coming to a neighborhood near you.  Maybe not now or next year.  But inevitably, like death and taxes.  Except it’s more fun, more fun, that is, unless you’re the one guy in 10,000 who gets stuck in a rogue AI vehicle with a software glitch that won’t stop driving and won’t let you out until its battery runs down.  But hey, nothing in this life is perfect.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 15:21-28 – 21 And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22 And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely possessed by a demon.” 23 But he did not answer her a word. …

By Zelda Caldwell, National Catholic Register – President Donald Trump has commissioned architect James McCrery — a prominent figure in the revival of classical architecture and a designer of some of the most beautiful “new traditional” Catholic churches in the United States — to design a new White House ballroom… The White House announced plans last week for the construction of a 90,000-square-foot building, with a seating capacity of 650 people. The current East Room can only accommodate 200 guests… The selection of McCrery Architects as lead designers for the project and the accompanying architectural renderings offers a clear signal of the project’s stylistic direction. …

By Matthew Balan, Catholic World Report – Near the end of his study, Datta emphasizes how these organizations “have expanded their reach and influence across Africa,” and their participation in “efforts aim to shape African societies and influence policies, particularly in opposition to human rights in sexuality and reproductive health.” He blames the Catholic Church for inspiring these groups: “Pioneered by the Vatican, all anti-gender actors….have seemingly convinced themselves with their crocodile tears that upholding…colonial legal frameworks criminalising same-sex relations and/or abortion rights is the real path to African sovereignty.”

By John Zmirak, The Stream – Even if the mainstream media won’t report on it honestly, the Trump administration’s righteous war against our corrupt Deep State continues. In fact, it’s moving from words to legal deeds, and thanks be to God. If President Donald Trump’s win over Kamala Harris last fall was akin to the 1940 Dunkirk evacuation, what we’re seeing today is like the Normandy landing in June 1944: The big guns are firing, our troops are on the beaches, and the fascists are getting scared.

Patriot Post – Braying Jenny – “I’m a proud Guatemalan before I’m an American.” —Rep. Delia Ramirez… “Were we biased? Yes. Almost inadvertently, I’d say. ABC News has the same problem so many leading cultural institutions do in America: A lack of viewpoint diversity.” —former ABC News correspondent Terry Moran

By Rev. Peter M.J. Stravinskas, Catholic World Report – Did you ever walk into a theater while the last showing was still going on, so that you saw the end of the film before the beginning? That is something like the experience Peter, James, and John must have had on Mount Tabor, as they got a kind of sneak preview of Jesus’ glory. Peter especially loved it up there on that mountain. It was comfortable; there was no suffering; there were no enemies, only close friends. And Peter wanted to stay.

By Vigilant Fox, (Gateway Pundit) – In a move that many were hoping for but were not expecting, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy just announced that BARDA will be CANCELING 22 mRNA vaccine development contracts, saving taxpayers about $500 million in the process… This move delivered a major blow to the biomedical industrial complex, which was hoping to make an mRNA vaccine for just about every disease imaginable… The reason for this move is grounded in what happened during the COVID debacle, which Kennedy explained in detail. …

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – Of course that conclusion is not a new discovery. Ralph Martin, Eduardo Echeverria, and Edward Peters are only the latest in a fairly long line of loyal Catholics who have been dismissed from their posts not because of any misconduct or incompetence, but because their views, while fully in keeping with orthodox Catholic thought, were uncongenial to their ecclesiastical superiors. Anyone who works for the Church—as seminary instructor or religious-education director or newspaper editor or music director—could face the same fate. …

By Veronica Burchard, Crisis Magazine – What Does Rerum Novarum Really Say?… As I read it, disbelief gave way to outrage. How misled I had been! This was no evenhanded critique of socialism on the one hand and capitalism on the other! It was a strong condemnation of socialism backed by a vigorous, principled defense of private property and the family. And, even more radically for our day, it was an explanation of why socialism hurts the poor rather than helps them. …

By Oliver Oliveros, Catholic Exchange – In past articles, I’ve mentioned how the 1960s counterculture movement was a scourge on the Judeo-Christian world. In this post, I’ll bring to light the self-help “spirituality” of the 2000s, another psychological plague on our culture… The first time that I ever got captivated by something “viral” on social media happened in 2006. A trusted friend sent me a link to the documentary The Secret. Like millions of people, I watched the entire film, and, lacking any discernment, I was intrigued by it. The Secret was subsequently released as a book by Rhonda Byrne and was an instant bestseller.

Franciscan Media – All three Synoptic Gospels tell the story of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-8; Mark 9:2-9; Luke 9:28-36). With remarkable agreement, all three place the event shortly after Peter’s confession of faith that Jesus is the Messiah and Jesus’ first prediction of his passion and death. Peter’s eagerness to erect tents or booths on the spot suggests it occurred during the week-long Jewish Feast of Booths in the fall.

By Andrew Gondy, The American Spectator – Creating stable marriages and families is the most important way to reclaim our culture. Without these, conservatism is dead… In 1865, William Ross Wallace delivered a succinct and powerful cultural insight: “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world.” In contemporary American life, the startling emptiness of this cradle is forging a new battlefield for young conservatives… In late July, the CDC reported that U.S. birth rates have fallen to just 1.6 children per woman. This is the lowest recorded fertility rate in American history, and plunges our country well below replacement birth levels.

By Darrick Taylor, Crisis Magazine – The “Detroit Massacre” is a sign that the Catholic Church has entered the janitorial phase of its own revolution… the days when a true revolutionary, such as Hans Küng, at least had a brain and some level of competence are long gone… Instead, we have nonentities such as “Tucho” Fernández and whoever ghostwrote Traditionis Custodes raised to positions for which they are wholly unqualified. But they are willing to do whatever it takes to advance the revolution, which is why they were raised up in the first place. That is why men such as James Martin are promoted and protected while three distinguished professors are fired from their positions with no explanation and no warning. …

By Nancy Flanders, LiveAction – The lawsuit is a desperate attempt to keep taxpayer money in Planned Parenthood’s pockets even as it has been shutting down its own centers, losing clients, decreasing its legitimate health care services, and switching its business to telehealth…. “For years, Americans have been forced to subsidize the killing of innocent children and the exploitation of vulnerable women,” said Live Action founder and president Lila Rose in a statement. “Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion chain, ending over 400,000 lives annually while masking their business as healthcare. This defunding victory is a crucial step toward ending that injustice.”

By Br. Joel Compacion Añasco, SC, Catholic Exchange – Furthermore, death is always difficult. It brings sorrow, longing, and many times confusion. Even Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus (Jn. 11:35). Our faith does not deny the pain of loss. But it does offer us a greater truth—that our suffering is not wasted. In Christ, death becomes not an end but a doorway to eternal life. For those who die in the Lord, death is a homecoming. And for those left behind, it becomes an invitation to trust, to hope, and to draw closer to the One who has conquered death.

By Sen. John Barrasso, The Daily Signal – Democrats and the media are doing everything they can to slow the momentum of President Donald Trump by attacking the “One Big, Beautiful” law’s Medicaid provisions… While Democrats want to weaken Medicaid by giving taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal immigrants and allowing able-bodied adults who don’t work to game the system, Republicans actually strengthened Medicaid by passing the One Big, Beautiful Bill into law… Last week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., came to the Senate floor to spread blatant lies about the Republican agenda.

By Felix Miller, Catholic Vote – The Chicago Sun-Times has published an article arguing that a Vatican document released in February prohibiting dioceses from publicly listing the names of priests credibly accused of abuse but not yet been found guilty or innocent could lead to “a new era of secrecy over child sex abuse.”… The Aug. 1 article by Robert Herguth focuses on the status of such lists in dioceses in Illinois and nearby states… “As part of their stated commitment to transparency and healing over the decades-long clergy sex abuse crisis, all six Catholic dioceses in Illinois post public listings online that name clergy members deemed to have been credibly accused of molesting children,” the Sun-Times reported.

By Jordan Boyd, The Federalist – President Donald Trump spent the last few months of his 2024 campaign promising to force taxpayers to foot the bill for a procedure that routinely destroys human life. His plans to pave the way for Americans to make “more babies” by subsidizing in vitro fertilization, however, are allegedly on hold… The Washington Post reported that as of Sunday, Trump’s White House is allegedly “backing away from proposals discussed internally to mandate IVF coverage for the roughly 50 million people on the Obamacare exchanges.”

By Catholic Vote – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly preparing to instruct his war cabinet to authorize a full military occupation of the Gaza Strip, expanding operations into areas previously avoided due to concerns about the safety of Israeli hostages, according to The Times of Israel… The Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) reported late Monday that a senior official close to Netanyahu stated bluntly: “The die is cast — we are going for a full occupation of the Gaza Strip.”

By John Zmirak, The Stream – If you have a worldview that’s 1) internally incoherent, 2) hysterically moralistic, and 3) grounded in nothing but the current group preferences of the powerful, what can you do to enforce it on the masses? You can’t convince them rationally, so that’s off the table. You can try gaslighting them and manipulating their sentiments. That works pretty well sometimes, provided you dominate the means of communication. But pesky dissidents wielding stupid facts and tedious arguments will often burst your balloon.

By Randall Smith, The Catholic Thing – Imagine you’ve worked for a company for over twenty years.  Your record of employment has been stellar; you’ve received numerous awards; and you are widely considered one of the top people in your field. Now imagine that one day, your manager calls you into his office and says: “We’ve decided to go in a different direction.”… What direction would that be?  The direction of less competent, less experienced people without a proven record of accomplishment?  Do you fire your winning quarterback and say, “We’re going in a different direction”?  Wouldn’t that be the direction of losing games?

By Abigail Galván, National Catholic Register – Anthony D’Ambrosio knows what it is to hit a wall. For years, he endured an unexplainable insomnia that often granted him only 20 minutes to just two hours of sleep… The resulting exhaustion and mental fog cost the entrepreneur his ability to work, strained his relationships, and left him questioning both his faith and the value of staying alive… Then he encountered St. Maximilian Kolbe. …

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky, Catholic Culture – G.K. Chesterton said the reason we get angry is that we’ve never learned to argue well. Argument helps us to identify and solve conundrums, and directs efforts to maintain justice and overcome human suffering. Our ability to argue well includes the capacity to identify unwavering first principles for reasonable application, informed by prudential judgments… The law of gravity is non-negotiable as a first principle of physics. We may try to defy the law, but gravity will always win. Rocket science only works by taking into account the law of gravity. So it is with morality. …

By Craig Bannister, MRC TV – Three-fourths of U.S. voters who follow the news of the investigation into the Trump Russia Collusion hoax think it’s likely that Obama Administration officials “committed serious crimes” to foster the false narrative used to smear and impeach President Donald Trump… Referencing a recent report from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard concluding that then-President Barack Obama’s national security team manipulated and manufactured intelligence to promote a false narrative about Russia and Donald Trump, a Rasmussen poll of U.S. likely voters conducted July 29-31, 2025 asked the following question: …

By CNA Staff, CNA Newsroom –  A century after the patron saint of priests, St. John Vianney, died on Aug. 4, 1859, Pope John XXIII reflected on the life of the saint and what it means to be a holy priest… In contemplating his life, one immediately thinks of a priest who lived out great penance and whose “only motives were the love of God and the desire for the salvation of the souls of his neighbors,” John XXIII said… The saintly pope reflected on the life of Vianney in an encyclical titled Sacerdotii Nostri Primordia. The encyclical was written in 1959 for the 100th anniversary of Vianney’s death.

CV News Feed – In what has become one of the most memorable gatherings of Pope Leo XIV’s young pontificate, more than one million young Catholics from roughly 150 countries converged on the Tor Vergata fields southeast of Rome Aug. 3 for the closing Mass for the Jubilee of Youth, a highlight of the Vatican’s Holy Year… According to AP News, Rome initially anticipated half a million pilgrims, but the crowd swelled to a million sea of youth singing hymns, waving flags and camping overnight under the summer sky…

By Carole Novielli, Live Action News – Over the past two decades, clinics have closed or left the network..” As Planned Parenthood fights to maintain access to taxpayer dollars, some of its donors are upset about the organization’s “mission creep,” Planned Parenthood’s deliberate departure from the reasons those donors began supporting the organization in the first place… Key Takeaways: A recent article from the Wall Street Journal caused a stir among Planned Parenthood supporters, revealing that the organization’s “mission creep” is disappointing its donors. …

By Emmy Griffin, Patriot Post – The previous administration’s reliance on NGOs greatly contributed to the abuse and neglect of unaccompanied illegal alien minors — a scandal about which Dems have little to say… There was nothing good that came from Pres. J. Biden’s sanctioned invasion of the southern border. Perhaps the most heinous consequence was exposing already vulnerable migrant children to predators within the US interior. Many of these unaccompanied kids were put in the hands of unvetted sponsors, and for some, that sponsor was a trafficker. Biden’s DHHS then lost track of the minors.

By Gerard Nadal, National Catholic Register – Finally! … The children of Margaret Sanger have awakened to the horrors of eugenics. It’s about time. Seriously… When people are blind to malignant evil, it usually takes something more earth-shattering than the typical manifestation of the evil to shake them from their moral torpor… For the left, that constitutes a social media meltdown over American Eagle and its model, actress Sydney Sweeney, accusing them of being Nazi eugenicists for an ad campaign featuring Sweeney in their jeans that says simply, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.”

By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing – For many years, I found it hard to warm to St. Paul. I know I’m hardly the only one. St. Peter himself wrote: “His letters contain some things that are hard to understand.” An understatement, to say the least. And then, there are the consequences of that difficulty, “which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.” (2 Peter 3:13) Since the Protestant Reformation with its emphasis on sola fide, erroneously derived from Paul by isolating the phrase from other things he said ….

By Jennifer Galardi, The Daily Signal – Ever since Donald Trump rode down his golden escalator at Trump Tower in 2015, a political and cultural realignment has been underway in America, culminating in his second presidential victory. Many issues once considered the domain of the Left seem to have been adopted by the new, right-leaning populist movement… Nowhere is this more apparent than in health policy. The “Make America Healthy Again” movement was started by those who likely would have considered themselves liberal up until a few years ago, most prominently, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. himself.

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Matthew 14:13-21 – 13 Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place apart. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14 As he went ashore he saw a great throng; and he had compassion on them, and healed their sick. 15 When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a lonely place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” ….

By Walker Larson, Catholic Exchange – In addition to her much-beloved Story of a Soul, St. Therese of Lisieux wrote many poems during her earthly sojourn. She wrote them for herself, to express the longings of her heart, but due to her worldwide fame following her death, we are blessed to have the chance to read these meditations of her soul… One of Therese’s more successful poems from an artistic standpoint is “Hymn to the Holy Face,” composed in August of 1895. Therese possessed a special devotion to the Holy Face, as evidenced by the fact that she took it as part of her religious name: “Sister Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.” …

Franciscan Media – Saint John Vianney (Saint Jean Vianney), also known as the Curé d’Ars, is considered the patron saint of parish priests. He is known for his deep devotion to the Church and his dedication to the sacrament of confession. His life inspires all priests, as he exemplified a genuinely holy priest through his humility, selflessness, and unwavering faith.