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This is so cool!NASCAR driver Johnny Sauter recently won the Jag Metals 350 at Texas Motor Speedway. In a post-race interview, he added a few things you don’t normally hear: “I just thank the Sacred of Jesus and the Blessed Mother. And today is First Friday so we should pray for all the poor souls in purgatory.” (full video below)The Friday Friday devotion he mentioned dates back to the 17th century and is associated with devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which he also referenced.This isn’t the first time Sauter has been public about his Catholic faith in post-race interviews. In...

2017 may go down as the year that sexual scandals rocked America. The thing about a charge of rape, said 17th century British judge Sir Matthew Hale, is that it ‘‘is an accusation easily to be made and hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the party accused”---even if that party is innocent. It is an excruciating dilemma. Most such crimes occur in private. And yet false charges are also sometimes made. How do we give proper due process to the accused while showing compassion to victims? But one thing that troubles me about all this is...

Proverb 16 (NKJV) Wisdom Is Better Than Gold 01 The preparations of the heart belong to man, 00 But the answer of the tongue is from the LORD. 02 All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, 00 But the LORD weighs the spirits. 03 Commit your works to the LORD, 00 And your thoughts will be established. 04 The LORD has made all for Himself, 00 Yes, even the wicked for the day of doom. 05 Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD; 00 Though they join forces, none will go...

Needy Christians are forced to replace religious images with pictures of the president to get aid. “They think God is their saviour,” an official said. “After our cadres’ work, they’ll realise their mistakes and think: we should no longer rely on Jesus, but on the party for help”. According to some sources, the number of Christians exceeds that of party members.Beijing (AsiaNews/SCMP) – Yugan County, a poor rural area in the southern province of Jiangxi Province, has undertaken a campaign to replace religious faith with faith in the party. To achieve this, the local government is asking people to replace...

November 15, marks the beginning of the Nativity Fast (40 days before Christmas). The following article offers some thoughts on the purpose of fasting.+++Fasting is not very alive or well in the Christian world. Much of that world has long lost any living connection with the historical memory of Christian fasting. Without the guidance of Tradition, many modern Christians either do not fast, or constantly seek to re-invent the practice, sometimes with unintended consequences.There are other segments of Christendom who have tiny remnants of the traditional Christian fast, but in the face of a modern world have reduced the tradition...

Guidelines for the Nativity Fast The Nativity Fast(November 15 through December 24) The Nativity Fast is one of the four Canonical Fasting Seasons in the Church year. This is a joyous fast in anticipation of the Nativity of Christ. That is the reason it is less strict than other fasting periods. The fast is divided into two periods. The 1st period is November 15th through December 19th when the traditional fasting discipline (no meat, dairy, fish, wine, and oil) is observed. There is dispensation given for wine and oil on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Similarly, fish, wine, and oil are permitted...

AUSTRALIANS have voted in support of legalising same-sex marriage in following the results of a national survey. The result came to 61.6 per cent voting ‘Yes’ and 38.4 per cent voting ‘No’. A total of 133 out of 150 electorates recorded a majority ‘Yes’ result while only 17 voted ‘No’. The national survey returned 7.8 million responses in support of same sex marriage and 4.9 million voted against. Queensland voters followed the national trend with 61 per cent voting ‘Yes’ and 39 per cent voting ‘No’. In an address to the Australian public, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the survey...

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center In “Islam’s Expansion Across Europe: Not Martin Luther’s Fault,” one Paul Gottfried pretends to respond to my article, “The Pro-Islamic West: Born 500 years Ago.”  While many of his own readers saw through and exposed his misrepresentations in the comments section more thoroughly than I ever would have, Gottfried’s piece is still worth examining if only for the important lessons surrounding it. First, if you seek an example of or are uncertain what a “strawman argument” is—typically defined as “giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument,...

Proverb 15 (NKJV) A Soft Answer Turns Away Wrath 01 A soft answer turns away wrath, 00 But a harsh word stirs up anger. 02 The tongue of the wise uses knowledge rightly, 00 But the mouth of fools pours forth foolishness. 03 The eyes of the LORD are in every place, 00 Keeping watch on the evil and the good. 04 A wholesome tongue is a tree of life, 00 But perverseness in it breaks the spirit. 05 A fool despises his father's instruction, 00 But he who receives correction is prudent. 06 In the house of the...

Fr. Wei Heping, 41, died in mysterious circumstances, his body dumped in a river in Taiyuan (Shanxi). For the police claim he committed suicide. Family members are not allowed to even see the autopsy report. For Card. Zen the Holy See (which "is not necessarily the Pope") seeks a compromise at all costs with the Chinese government, risking "to sell out the faithful Church". Justice and Peace publish a booklet about Fr. Wei, not to forget.Hong Kong (AsiaNews) - Card. Joseph Zen, Emeritus Bishop of Hong Kong, has asked God to save the Holy See "from the brink of the...

Proverb 14 (NKJV) The Ways of Life and Death 01 The wise woman builds her house, 00 But the foolish pulls it down with her hands. 02 He who walks in his uprightness fears the LORD, 00 But he who is perverse in his ways despises Him. 03 In the mouth of a fool is a rod of pride, 00 But the lips of the wise will preserve them. 04 Where no oxen are, the trough is clean; 00 But much increase comes by the strength of an ox. 05 A faithful witness does not lie, 00 But a...

Lawmakers try to block prayers, held since March in protest against mosque closureCLICHY (France) • Around 100 local French lawmakers attempted to block Muslims praying in a street north of Paris and called on the government to ban what they see as an unacceptable use of public space. The lawmakers, led by the head of the regional government of the Paris area, Mrs Valerie Pecresse, disrupted the crowd of around 200 all-male devotees last Friday, and sang the national anthem in the multi-ethnic Clichy suburb. "Public space cannot be taken over in this way," Mrs Pecresse said at the demonstration...

Moscow, November 13, Interfax - The body of Vladimir Lenin must be buried but at present this could shake the political situation in Russia, according to Alexander Shchipkov, first deputy chairman of the Synodal Department for Church, Society and Media Relations, and an advisor to the State Duma speaker. "Let's impose a moratorium, five to ten years [on the subject of reburying the leader]. If we don't bury [him], our children will, he has already lain in state for 70 years! But of course, buried he should be," Shchipkov said during a lecture at the Library of Foreign Literature in...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Saturday reaffirmed the "primacy" of using one's conscience to navigate tough moral questions in his first comments since he was publicly accused of spreading heresy by emphasizing conscience over hard and fast Catholic rules. Francis issued a video message to a conference organized by Italian bishops on his controversial 2016 document on family life, "The Joy of Love." The document has badly divided the Catholic Church, with some commentators warning that it risked creating a schism given its opening to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics. Francis told the conference that priests must inform...

"It is common knowledge that the advent of Bolshevism in 1917 was devastating for devout believers in the former tsarist empire." "Less well known is the fact that the October Revolution interrupted a reform movement that could have taken the Russian Orthodox Church in a new direction, and that it subsequently caused splintering from which the Church still has not recovered." "Under the tsars, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) served as an important pillar of the autocratic system. Just how subservient the church was to the state remains a matter of debate. Some historians, such as Gregory Freeze and Scott...

Proverb 13 (NKJV) Wisdom Loves Righteousness 01 A wise son heeds his father's instruction, 00 But a scoffer does not listen to rebuke. 02 A man shall eat well by the fruit of his mouth, 00 But the soul of the unfaithful feeds on violence. 03 He who guards his mouth preserves his life, 00 But he who opens wide his lips shall have destruction. 04 The soul of a lazy man desires, and has nothing; 00 But the soul of the diligent shall be made rich. 05 A righteous man hates lying, 00 But a wicked man is...

Boys as young as five should be able to wear tiaras at school without criticism, teachers in Church of England schools are to be told. Male pupils should also be free to dress up in a tutu or high heels without attracting any comment or observation, according to anti-bullying rules sent out by the Church yesterday. The instructions for the CofE’s 4,700 schools said they should not require children to wear uniforms that ‘create difficulty for trans pupils’. This appears to give official backing to schools that ban skirts to avoid discrimination against transgender children. Schools are also told they...

I find it fascinating to watch the praxis of our politically-correct multiculturalist establishment when it comes to Islam. You would think that those PC elites would be, at the very least, offended by the tenets of the Muslim religion, if not very wary of how orthodox Muslims have conducted themselves across the globe in recent years. Their insistent response to Islamic terror and violence has been, almost uniformly, to declare repeatedly that “Islam is a religion of peace,” and that such manifestations as ISIS and Al-Qaeda in Syria, North Africa, Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere are aberrations which don’t represent the...

Question: "What is the prayer of salvation?" Answer: Many people ask, “Is there a prayer I can pray that will guarantee my salvation?” It is important to remember that salvation is not received by reciting a prayer or uttering certain words. The Bible nowhere records a person’s receiving salvation by a prayer. Saying a prayer is not the biblical way of salvation. The biblical method of salvation is faith in Jesus Christ. John 3:16 tells us, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have...