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Q: My family is doing genealogical research, and we’ve discovered discrepancies in the birth-dates of a couple of our great-grandparents…. They married very young, and depending on which birth-dates are correct, we’re thinking it’s possible they may really have been too young to marry validly in the Church. If a marriage is invalid due to the age of the spouses, does it automatically become valid when they’re old enough? Or do they need to have another wedding ceremony once they’ve reached the minimum age? –Frank

It’s been an interesting couple weeks at the Supreme Court. The Court term ends today, traditionally many case decisions are announced in June. The Obama administration has seen its position struck down by a unanimous Court 8 times. This includes cases involving the searching of smart phones and a law restricting speech outside of an abortion clinic. The Court has chipped away at government power, whether it’s Federal or state. (in government power cases the Federal government often provides a brief and argues their position) This court can hardly be called libertarian though, most of the cases have been narrowly...

The restoration of the University of Illinois’ iconic Alma Mater statue in April of this year comes with very mixed emotions. After undergoing a $300,000, two year restoration effort, our academic mother rests on her pedestal, arms outstretched once again welcoming us to Wright and Green Streets. But haven’t our university and other Illinois colleges and universities really made Illini citizens the children of cobblers who have no shoes? How can the state with such a proud academic and medical reputation be in such horrific disarray? Reading the most recent alumni magazine is disconcerting. “Blue Waters supercomputer on the Urbana...

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In a June 26 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that 35-foot buffer zones around abortion clinics - meant to keep demonstrators away - violates First Amendment rights. The decision, a victory for pro-life groups, reversed an appellate court decision upholding a 2007 Massachusetts law that made it a crime for anyone other than clinic workers to stand within the yellow semicircular lines painted 35 feet from entrances of Planned Parenthood clinics in Boston, Springfield and Worcester. Eleanor McCullen, lead plaintiff in the case, McCullen v. Coakley, said she should be able to speak and offer advice to women...

Former IRS hack Lois Lerner targeted a Republican Senator, threatening an “examination.” The GOP Senator happens to be Chuck Grassley who sits on the Senate Finance Committee. In other words, Lerner wanted to target a Republican Senator who sits on a committee that oversees issues of taxation. No sir, there isn’t any political targeting of conservatives at the IRS! One can only wonder how many other examples of Lerner targeting conservative individuals or groups could be discovered in the emails allegedly lost forever by the IRS. Even 63% of rank and file Democrats think the IRS deliberately destroyed Lerner’s emails.

The 2013 Maryland General Assembly session ends midnight April 8, and the Maryland Catholic Conference expects to work up to the legislature’s final hours on policy issues ranging from stem-cell research funding transparency to nonpublic school textbook funding. Among the legislation getting a final push from the MCC is the Maryland Highway Safety Act, which would allow the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration to issue driver’s licenses or identification cards to people without a Social Security number. “Expanding the eligibility for a driver’s license would protect all drivers in the state and make our roads and highways safer,” the MCC said...

The Eucharist conforms Catholics to “the pattern of Christ’s self-giving love” and compels them to see the dignity of the poor and perform acts of mercy, Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori said at the June 21 opening Mass for this year’s Fortnight for Freedom. The Mass coincided with the feast of Corpus Christi. “By entering the dynamic of Christ’s self-giving eucharistic love, we are impelled ... to work for a loving and just society where the dignity of human life is respected from conception until natural death and all the stages in between,” he said in his homily. More than...

by Jason DeWitt | Top Right NewsOne thing we love about Mike Rowe, the former “Dirty Jobs” TV host and current head of Mike Rowe Works, is that he always speaks his mind. Monday, he did so once again — and took on a lawyer in doing so.Mike hit his local liquor store last week and noticed a picture near the front of the shop: a man in a white shirt that the store was identifying as a shoplifter. “Good for you,” Rowe says he told the owner, as he retold the story on a Facebook post: “I wish every store in the country did...

George Bush had much bigger plans for Iraq than simply killing Saddam Hussein, securing his WMDs and handing over control of the oil rich nation to whatever remained of the Ba’ath Party once hostilities ended. Some might consider him naive, but Bush believed that a modern Iraq, one that respected minority and woman’s rights, one ruled by the rule of law rather than the rule of the mullahs, could act as a catalyst in the Muslim world bringing Judeo-Christian values and justice to hundreds of millions who lived their lives in Islamist chains. It was an audacious goal, one that...

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Approved climate change scientists have been quietly manipulating temperature data dating back to at least the 1930′s. In order to prove global warming, these scientists have tossed aside actual temperature data collected in the 30′s and beyond in favor of computer models. Those computer models just happen to prove exactly what their programers want to prove. Thus computer models show a massive warming since the 30′s when actual temperatures taken during that decade show it to be the warmest decade on record. Of course progressive scientists can’t peddle doom and gloom unless there is a massive warming. Actual temperatures get...

Rupert Murdoch on Wednesday wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, one of Murdoch’s media holdings, about an issue that has been on his wish list for years: immigration reform. From it comes Murdoch’s “Immigrant Elevator Speech”. “I chose to come to America and become a citizen because America was — and remains — the most free and entrepreneurial nation in the world. Our history is defined by people whose character and culture have been shaped by ambition, imagination and hard work, bound together by a dream of a better life.” This is all quite charming until you realize...

. (AP/Reuters/Satire-Off) ... 2017-01-19 President Obama's Final Act of Office -- Pardon and FULL Citizenship for ALL Illegal Immigrants A dire heads-up warning to Rush Limbaugh, Ted Cruz, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin and The Heritage Foundation ... et al "What the HELL will Conservative America do to defeat this" ??? People need to wake-up to this VERY predictable REALITY. What are the available legal responses, if ANY ? Does this action by the traitor Obama physically ignite the Second American Civil War ? What is the response/posture of the U.S. Military ? .

Taxpayers money was recently used by a delegation of California academics and one labor activist to pay for a unity meeting with convicted terrorists.

Q: My daughter stopped practicing her faith and was married to a protestant in his church. Now she has come back, and her protestant husband is preparing to become a Catholic too, next Easter. They understand that their marriage isn’t valid in the eyes of the Catholic Church, but the parish priest told them he can just “bless their marriage” and it will be all right. Can that possibly be true? –Eamon

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Two arrogant progressives at the US Patent Office have denied a trademark to the Washington Redskins. It appears these two people decided the name Redskins was racist or otherwise offensive. The team name has overwhelming support from the general public. After a solid year of endless attacks on the name at ESPN and other news outlets, the left has been unable to convince the public or the team that the name needs to be changed. In typical progressive fashion, they had the government do what the free market wouldn’t do. They denied the trademark clearly hoping this would force a...

Consumer prices are skyrocketing. The price of meat, poultry, fish and eggs was up 0.7% in May. The price of chicken is up 50% in the last decade. There are some mitigating factors in these price increases. The cattle herd isn’t very good this year and a pork virus has killed thousands of pigs. Nonetheless, with incomes stagnate price increases on staples such as meat and eggs is felt by the middle class. Consumer prices generally were up 0.4% in May after a 0.3% increase in April. Inflation has arrived after years of money printing at the Federal Reserve. (with...

A man was caught on camera beating a woman who is reported to be his wife, but then gets served a hefty dose of karma he didn’t see coming. In this shocking video that has gone viral, one passerby comes to the rescue of the woman, but is quickly chased away by the enraged wife beater. The raging man continues to brutally beat his wife once he got her would-be rescuer away from the scene. Things escalated with the abuse to the point where the beater pushed the woman’s head so hard into the side of a pick up truck,...