Mary Jo Anderson

Mary Jo Anderson is a Catholic journalist and public speaker. She is a board member of Women for Faith and Family and has served on the Legatus Board of Directors. With co-author Robin Bernhoft, she wrote Male and Female He Made Them: Questions and Answers about Marriage and Same-Sex Unions (Catholic Answers Press, 2005).

recent articles

Why Condoms Will Never Stop AIDS In Africa

Every ten seconds, a man, woman, or child in Africa dies from an AIDS-related disease. According to the USAIDS/World Health Organization (WHO), 40.3 million people now live with HIV infections, two-thirds of them in sub-Saharan Africa. In Swaziland, 42.6 percent of pregnant women test positive for HIV. There’s no cure for this killer, and no … Read more

Implosion: The Collapse of the United Nations

The United Nations has a problem. A laundry list of recent corruption allegations and scandals has created a credibility gap in the 60-year-old organization that now worries even its staunchest supporters. Seasoned UN employees quietly admit that they hope United States ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, “feared but not revered,” will bring order to … Read more

The Eight Habits of Highly Effective Bishops

Notwithstanding the sex-abuse scandal that has buffeted the Catholic Church in the United States, Catholics genuinely admire bishops whose courage and dedication have made a difference in their dioceses. Adversity tends to sharpen the contrast and clarify the picture of Catholicism in America. And the recent presidential election added another dimension to any reflection on … Read more

Suffer the Children — The Disaster of Talking about Touching

On September 29, 2003, a frustrated Rev. David Mullen sent a letter to newly installed Archbishop Sean O’Malley of Boston, pleading for help. “Talking About Touching” (TAT), a controversial safety education program designed for children in kindergarten to fourth grade, had just been accepted in the Archdiocese of Boston. He wrote: I am most distressed … Read more

Ungodly Ways: The Dark Side of the European Union

Look at this stone. It has been lying in this water for a very long time, but the water has not penetrated it…. The same thing has happened to men in Europe. For centuries they have been surrounded by Christianity, but Christ has not penetrated, Christ does not live within them. —Cardinal Lamberto, The Godfather … Read more

Monastery Vacations in France

Glossy travel catalogs overflowed my mailbox in early spring. These days, modern travelers are wooed with the promise of novelty: Swim with the dolphins or search for Incan artifacts with archaeologists in Peru. Travel professionals recognize that often what is sought is not just another excursion but a Significant Experience. Sandwiched between the travel catalogs … Read more

Back With a Vengeance: The Return of the Women’s Ordination Question

On the third Sunday of Advent in 1998, a handful of middle-aged women wearing purple ribbons clutched purple flowers as they entered St. Barnabas Cathedral in Nottingham, England. The members of Catholic Women’s Ordination (CWO) had come from surrounding parishes to stand as witnesses to their hope for women priests. “At the end of Mass, … Read more

The UN’s War Against Children

The United Nations (UN) General Assembly is calling world leaders to New York City this month for the 2001 Special Session on Children, a ten-year follow-up to the UN’s 1990 World Summit for Children. The purpose of this year’s session is to “change the way the world views and treats children.” The harsh reality awaiting … Read more

The “Other” Shroud of Christ

A little-known relic in Oviedo, Spain, called the Sudarium, the cloth said to have covered Jesus’ face after He was crucified, may be the key to unveiling the mystery of the Shroud of Turin. The history and scientific findings respecting the Sudarium, often called the “Cloth of Oviedo,” provide an unfolding story that rivals the … Read more

UN Globalization Efforts Progress

The final months of the Jubilee year witnessed three pivotal encounters between the Church and an emerging system of global governance. The Millennium Peace Summit, sponsored by the United Nations (UN) and bankrolled by Ted Turner, honorary chair, gathered world religious leaders in New York August 28-31. Immediately following that controversial assembly, Mikhail Gorbachev convened … Read more

Stopping the International Criminal Court

Dutch readers of the homosexual magazine Gay Krant tried unsuccessfully to sue Pope John Paul II in an Amsterdam court. In July, Gay Pride organized a gathering in Rome. The Dutch group claims the Holy Father’s comment that the event was “offensive and insulting to Christian values” is discriminatory and incites hatred against homosexuals. Of … Read more

Vatican on Trial at the United Nations

Modern dissident Catholics have sought for years to challenge the Church from within Catholic universities, theological societies, and various anti-magisterial associations. Their litany of complaints has been drowned out of late by the voices of renewed orthodoxy. The papacy of John Paul II has met every thrust and parry progressive Catholics have attempted from within. … Read more

Pilgrimage to the Stars

“Herod the king stretched forth his hands to afflict some of the Church. And he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword.” That stark recounting from the Book of Acts begins a marvel of God’s grace for the devoted apostle. James “the Great”; his younger brother, St. John the Evangelist; and St. Peter … Read more

Catholicism, UN Style

A web of wires connected microphones, earphones, and lights behind the nameplates of the world’s leading foundations: Turner, Hewlett, MacArthur, Rockefeller, Gates. The main committee meeting of the United Nations’s Hague Forum featured an amphitheater of desks manned—often womanned—by delegates of 177 nations and of the rich and famous who bankroll population control worldwide. This … Read more

Buried in the Fine Print: An Inside Look at RENEW 2000

For the Church at large, the Holy Father’s call to renew the faithful in prayer on the eve of the third millennium is a splendid opportunity to strengthen the faithful and redeem the times. For the individual pastor, however, it can be a splendid misery. Overworked, weary, with resources stretched thin by administrative and pastoral … Read more

Contested Will

Luisa Piccarreta lay confined to bed for more than sixty years, each day recording in her notebooks all that Jesus revealed to her. The notebook entry for January 29, 1919, reads: My beloved daughter, I want you to know the order of my Providence. In every 2000 year period I have renewed the world. In … Read more

Referendum á là Roma

Dissident Catholics from thirty-five countries descended upon the Vatican on October 11, the 35th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council. Brandishing a much-publicized referendum and the signatures of more than 2.3 million Catholics demanding Church reforms, the representatives of We Are Church jostled amicably against Roman police. Dissidents, draped in blue or purple stoles to … Read more

On the Lookout: St. Anthony Messenger Flirts with the Extreme Left

St. Anthony Messenger has been a welcomed periodical in Catholic homes for over 100 years. The editor, Norman Perry, O.F.M., writes, “Throughout its century-plus of continuous publication we have been addressing the religious and spiritual concerns of Catholic families and readers, while applying Catholic teaching to the problems and situations we meet in everyday life.” … Read more

On the Lookout: Dissidents Caught in the Web

The thirty-fifth anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, October 11, will witness the convergence on Rome of dissident Catholics from Europe and the Americas. The militant revisionists will demand that the Vatican acknowledge the signatures collected in a two-year campaign that featured the We Are Church petition. Representatives claim their “restructuring” goals embody the true … Read more

The Enneagram—Psychic Babble

No fad has swept through Catholic seminaries and retreat centers in recent years with as much fervor as has the Enneagram. Teaching the Enneagram, variously billed as “the mirror of the soul” and “a map to the psyche,” has become the new profession of former priests, who offer it as a spiritual guide and an … Read more

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