The Minnesota couple asking people to vote about whether they should abort their child has said they never intended to have an abortion at all. Frankly, I was waiting for this. According to a CNN article, husband Peter Arnold said he wanted “to stimulate conversation about the politically charged subject”: Arnold told CNN he bought … Read more
In what can only be described as a sea change, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York has just been elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He won in a runoff, beating out controversial frontrunner Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas. It’s the first time since the 1960s that the sitting vice president didn’t … Read more
Brian Saint-Paul, in posting about Dan Burke’s piece at Religion News Service, alerted me to the following quote from Sister Simone Campbell, who is apparently one of those “progressive” Catholics I hear about: “Those [pro-choice, anti-limited-government, leftist legislators who culturally identify as Catholic] are folks who are really committed to the common good, with a … Read more
This is not an article for those who are unabashedly in love with democracy, who look forward to election year with patriotic zeal directed first of all to the nation and second of all to one of the political parties. I write instead for the genuinely dispossessed: for those who feel deep in their bones … Read more
Stephen Phelan, communications director at Human Life International, writes at Catholic Advocate about the alarming attempt of Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) to investigate pro-life efforts to protect the unborn in Kenya. Reading about Kennedy’s effort to mount a federal investigation of a perfectly legal lobbying effort, you have to wonder if he is coming unglued … Read more
Stephen Phelan, communications director at Human Life International, writes at Catholic Advocate about the alarming attempt of Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) to investigate pro-life efforts to protect the unborn in Kenya. Reading about Kennedy’s effort to mount a federal investigation of a perfectly legal lobbying effort, you have to wonder if he is coming unglued … Read more
Yesterday’s Las Vegas Review-Journal featured an unusual obituary for Mrs. Charlotte M. Tidwell McCourt, a long-time Nevada resident who passed away at the age of 84 following a long illness. The obituary itself is fairly pro forma, describing Mrs. McCourt’s life in terms that reveal her time here to have been both full and happy. But the … Read more
Another good reason to homeschool your kids was offered by the high school of Arlington, Massachusetts: they aren’t offering to let students recite the Pledge of Allegiance in the classroom – even voluntarily. 17-year old Arlington high student Sean Harrington has been leading a crusade to allow the Pledge of Allegiance to be recited in … Read more
Did California voters just strike a blow for governmental ‘moderation,’ or was Tuesday’s successful passage of Proposition 14 an early Christmas gift for lobbyists and big name, big money candidates? The new system will put candidates of all political stripes on a single ballot, and all voters will be able to participate. The top two … Read more
One thing we Catholics have known since almost the beginning: Most statements in the Bible can be misread, misapplied, and torn out of context to serve as the pretext for hysterical balderdash. Martin Luther famously used his private reading of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans to invent a whole new theology of salvation, … Read more
…and no one’s there, does it make a sound? Over at dotCommonweal, Robert Imbelli had a brief post on the buzz-producing “Yes” from Scott Brown on yesterday’s jobs bill. While many analysts have spent the last little while dissecting the vote itself, Imbelli noticed a much quieter (yet much more depressing) note in the story: Three hours before … Read more
A friend passed along an article written by author Laurence M. Vance, about American Right to Life’s recent assault on Dr. Ron Paul’s pro-life position. Vance comes out swinging: The right-to-life movement is a failure. Although millions of dollars have been spent on lobbying, marches, and protests since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, millions of women … Read more
Matt Smith, writing at Catholic Advocate, gives the most asute assessment of the Scott Brown victory I have seen. I especially like Smith’s comment on the reaction of White House aides like David Axelrod: They must have been watching the American Idol try-outs in Chicago instead of the returns. The vote in Massachusetts was about … Read more
Two news tidbits for an overcast Friday: First, as everyone knows, my neighbors to the south in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are getting ready to vote on the Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy when he vacated the earth last August (they’ve been represented since by his temporary replacement Paul Kirk, whom state lawmakers appointed … Read more
A poem by Christina Rosetti, published posthumously in 1904, became a favorite Christmas carol after Gustav Holst set it to music for the English Hymnal two years later. The poem underscores the harsh setting of the nativity — the first stanza reads: In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, … Read more
Kathleen Gilbert at LifeSiteNews has a fascinating interview with Julie Schmit-Albin, executive director of Nebraska Right to Life. On the surface the interview tells the story of a senator who made rather boastful promises of sticking to his pro-life convictions but abruptly broke those promises with a nonsensical cover story of adding “Stupak-plus” language to … Read more
The more Americans know about the new healthcare bill before the Senate, the less they like it. That’s the unmistakable trend in polling on the issue. But as Michael Cannon at Cato notes, that’s not stopping the Democrats from moving at full steam. Rather than go back to the drawing board and write a better … Read more
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), the last hope of pro-life forces, has caved in to Democratic Party and White House pressure to support the Senate Health Care Bill. He indicated today he would support the bill based upon the “manager’s amendment” containing the so-called “compromise” language on abortion funding negotiated by Sen. Bob Casey, Jr. (D-PA), … Read more
Whatever hope the health care bill had of authentic Catholic support ended yesterday when the Senate defeated the Nelson-Hatch amendment. Mirroring the Stupak-Pitts amendment in the House, this amendment would have prohibited federal funding for abortion. Deacon Keith Fournier has written eloquently this morning about the significance of this moment in our legislative history. … Read more
The election results of November 2 were not merely the spontaneous reaction of Republicans to the bad economy and liberal excesses of the Obama administration. The four pro-life, conservative GOP candidates in Virginia and New Jersey were elected in a groundswell of religious and social conservatives, many of them independent voters who had … Read more