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Religion & Culture (Religion)

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  • I support Patricia Jannuzzi's right to express her Catholic mind without fear of retribution

    03/25/2015 8:35:47 AM PDT · by Teófilo · 90 replies
    Vivificat - From Contemplation to Action ^ | 25 Mar 2015 | Teófilo de Jesús (@vivificat)
    Teacher Patricia Jannuzi Brethren, Peace be with you. As you may know from numerous media reports, Patricia Jannuzzi is a (suspended) teacher at a Catholic high school in New Jersey. According to Aleteia.org, Jannuzzi, a teacher at Immaculata High School in Somerville, was suspended with pay and benefits two weeks ago. Her bishop, Paul Bootkoski of the diocese of Metuchen, wrote that Jannuzzi’s now-deleted Facebook post was “disturbing and do not reflect the church’s teachings of acceptance.” Placing private-school teachers on administrative leave is a common form of punishment that school district officials use to fire the employees, according...
  • Why Do Islamists Love Bulldozing History So Much?

    03/25/2015 8:05:56 AM PDT · by SeekAndFind · 24 replies
    National Review ^ | 03/25/2015 | Daniel Pipes
    The recent bulldozing by the Islamic State of the ancient cities of Nimrud, Hatra, and Korsabad, three of the world’s greatest archaeological and cultural sites, is just this group’s latest round of assaults across the large area under its control. Since January 2014, the flamboyantly barbaric Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has blown up Shiite mosques, bulldozed churches, pulverized shrines, and plundered museums. Worse, the ISIS record fits into an old and common pattern of destruction of historical artifacts by Muslims. Some attacks target the works of other, rival religions, such as Orthodox churches in northern Cyprus (since 1974),...
  • A Catholic School Removes Teacher for Defending Faith

    03/25/2015 6:12:11 AM PDT · by marshmallow · 16 replies
    Crisis Magazine ^ | 3/24/15 | Anne Hendershott
    Chesterton once wrote that “War is not the best way of settling differences—but it is the only way of preventing them from being settled for you.” If the Catholic Church is to continue to teach the timeless truths about the dignity of all human persons from conception to natural death, and the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman, the Church needs to begin to seriously engage in the war that has already been declared against her by those who wish to destroy these teachings. In the past few weeks, there has been an escalation of the attacks...
  • A 'Spiritual Oasis' – Southern Arabian Cathedral Celebrates 50 Years

    03/25/2015 6:03:47 AM PDT · by marshmallow
    Catholic News Agency ^ | 3/23/15 | Antonio Anup Gonsalves
    Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Mar 23, 2015 / 05:33 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vicariate Apostolic of Southern Arabia, which serves the more than 2 million Catholics in the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Yemen, last week celebrated the 50th anniversary of its cathedral parish. On March 19, Bishop Paul Hinder, Vicar Apostolic of Southern Arabia, said a Mass of thanksgiving to mark the anniversary of the founding of St. Joseph's Cathedral, located in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates. St. Joseph's is the oldest Catholic church in the emirates. Bishop Hinder was joined by more than 30...
  • Ted Cruz Wants to Lead an Evangelical Ghost Army in 2016

    03/24/2015 10:41:24 PM PDT · by 2ndDivisionVet · 31 replies
    Vice Magazine ^ | March 24, 2015 | Grace Wyler, politics editor
    Someone had to be the first to jump into the 2016 presidential race, and it seems only fitting that that someone was US Senator Ted Cruz, leapfrogging over his likely opponents to launch his campaign early with a Jesus-soaked speech at the world's largest fundamentalist college. Cruz is a long shot for the GOP nomination, partly because he lacks experience, and mostly because no one likes him. But tucked into his speech Monday, in between stories about sin and redemption and abolishing the IRS, Cruz offered one reason he actually thinks he can win. "Today, roughly half of born again...
  • German prelate breaks rank with Cardinal Marx, insists on fidelity to Rome (Catholic Caucus)

    03/24/2015 5:20:49 PM PDT · by Mrs. Don-o · 12 replies
    Catholic News Agency ^ | March 23, 2015 | CNA staff
    A German cardinal has publicly opposed the words of two other German bishops who have suggested that the nation’s Church can form its own policies without direction from Rome. Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes published a letter earlier this month objecting to the pronouncements of prominent leaders of the Church in Germany that the nation's bishops' conference will pursue its own program of pastoral care for marriages and family regardless of the outcome of October's Synod on the Family. At a Feb. 25 press conference following the German bishops' plenary assembly, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising, who is president...
  • Diocese of Sodom and Gomorra

    03/24/2015 4:54:05 PM PDT · by ebb tide · 57 replies
    Gloria TV ^ | March 24, 2015
    In an eight page document in preparation for the Synod on the Family the diocese of Essen, Germany, has asked the Vatican to elaborate a “Rite for the blessing of same-sex-couples”, to de facto abolish the indissolubility of marriage, to accept adultery and to allow artificial birth control. According to the document, blessing of practiced homosexuality would be a – quote – “sign of justice” and “non-discrimination”.
  • The ‘African moment’ in global Catholicism gathers steam

    03/24/2015 3:34:12 PM PDT · by Mrs. Don-o · 9 replies
    Cruxnow ^ | March 24, 2015 | John L. Allen Jr.
    Ghanaian Archbishop Charles G. Palmer-Buckle of Accra, right, shown here with Cardinal Polycarp Pengo of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Just like assembling a jigsaw puzzle, it’s easier to sort through items in the news when you know what the big picture is supposed to look like. It’s already clear that one of the Catholic megatrends of our time is the coming of age of the Church in Africa, which gives three recent storylines special importance. In late February, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), the continent-wide assembly of African bishops, announced the appointment of a...
  • Card Burke says ‘manipulation’ at Synod driven by agenda to undermine teachings on marriage

    03/24/2015 1:52:42 PM PDT · by NYer · 6 replies
    Life Site News ^ | March 24, 2015
    FULL TITLE: Exclusive: Cardinal Burke says ‘manipulation’ at Synod was driven by agenda to undermine teachings on marriage LifeSiteNews Paris correspondent Jeanne Smits and Cardinal Raymond Burke Olivier Figueras / LifeSiteNews Note: Sign the petition to Pope Francis on the Synod and the future of the family, also signed by Cardinal Burke, here.ROME, March 24, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- In an interview with LifeSiteNews Paris correspondent Jeanne Smits, Cardinal Raymond Burke warns that confusion is spreading among Catholics regarding divorce and homosexuality.In a wide-ranging interview published today in full on LifeSiteNews, the cardinal, who until recently was the head of the Vatican’s highest...
  • Ted Cruz’s pitch to evangelicals has a hole in it (Amnesty?)

    03/24/2015 12:11:55 PM PDT · by 2ndDivisionVet · 21 replies
    The Washington Post's Plum Line ^ | March 24, 2015 | Greg Sargent
    Senator Ted Cruz’s presidential run is premised on the idea that, by speaking to the “values” of evangelical voters, he can mobilize them in numbers not seen in a very long time. “Imagine instead millions of people of faith all across America coming out to the polls and voting our values,” Cruz said yesterday, adding that these voters had been “staying home.” Cruz’s decision to announce his run at Liberty University is itself a sign that he hopes to assume the mantle of leading evangelical champion. And as Jon Ward puts it, Cruz’s announcement was “an attempt to lay down...
  • [Cardinal] Marx's comments "belong in the village pub"

    03/24/2015 5:53:40 AM PDT · by Petrosius · 5 replies
    Rorate Caeli ^ | March 24, 2015
    Marx's comments "belong in the village pub": Cardinal Josef Cordes' letter to Tagespost publicly rebuking German Bishops' Chairman The German-language Catholic news website Kath.net provided a few days ago an authorized summary of the letter sent by Cardinal Cordes to Tagespost on Cardinal Marx's most recent controversial statements, in effect declaring the independence of the German Church. Translation by reader "K":Vatican City. Authorised summary of a letter to the editor of the “Tagespost” from March 7, 2015, in which Paul Josef Cardinal Cordes, former president of the papal work COR UNUM, publicly refutes some statements made by Reinhard Cardinal...
  • Presbyterians And Homosexuals Together: The Crisis Of Christ And Culture

    03/23/2015 8:46:15 PM PDT · by ReformationFan · 9 replies
    The Aquila Report ^ | 3/23/15 | R. Scott Clark
    From its inception Christianity was a marginalized not a culturally powerful or influential religion. With the death of the mainlines we’re witnessing the last gasp of the informal Constantinianism in America, the gathering of cultural elites in the narthex of tall-steeple PCUSA congregations. The informal coalition of cultural and political power brokers in and with the mainline is dead. The WWII generation was probably the last to care to identify with the mainline or to seek the approval of the mainline. Now that the culture has got what it wanted, capitulation, even the NYT will ignore it. There is no...
  • Confusion in Ireland as 'Marriage Equality' Referendum Approaches

    03/23/2015 7:11:05 PM PDT · by marshmallow · 3 replies
    Catholic World Report ^ | 3/22/15 | Michael Kelly
    Changes in ambiguous wording, tepid warnings from Catholic bishops, and deep concerns about children are part of the tense lead-up to May 22nd vote Just two months before a May 22nd 'Marriage Equality' referendum, many commentators predict Ireland will become the first country in the world to insert a constitutional amendment permitting civil marriage between two people of the same gender. A distinctive feature of Irish democracy has been frequent recourse to constitutional referendums. May’s referendum will be the 35th time voters have been asked to amend the constitution in less than 80 years. The origin of this state of...
  • On the Great Void

    03/23/2015 5:08:36 PM PDT · by ebb tide · 2 replies
    The Radical Catholic ^ | March 23, 2015 | Radical Catholic
    A week ago today, Italian journalist and avowed atheist Eugenio Scalfari published an article containing notes from a new interview with Pope Francis. Although the article provoked some reactions in the Italian press, the rest of the world has been somewhat slow to register the publication and what it contains: Giuseppe Nardi reported on Scalfari's article on the 18th, and The Remnant blog picked up the story yesterday. This uncharacteristic sluggishness in reporting is not very surprising, as Scalfari's already dubious reputation among Catholics was irreparably damaged after the publication of similar notes from an interview last Summer which proved...
  • PopeWatch: Hell, Damnation and Pope Francis

    03/23/2015 4:37:19 PM PDT · by ebb tide · 10 replies
    The American Catholic ^ | March 23, 2015 | Donald R. McClarey
    [41] Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. Matthew 25: 41 Yet another fruit of Pope Francis’ policy of giving interviews and then never giving any sort of explanation after the feathers hit the fan. From Mahound’s Paradise: On to the Scalfari piece. It’s an editorial reflection in La Repubblica on what the journalist wants to see happen in the Church, so it’s not a new interview, per se. But he includes a part where he...
  • Holy Father: Why have you allowed this man to take possession of his Cathedra?

    03/23/2015 4:21:31 PM PDT · by ebb tide · 65 replies
    Vox Cantoris ^ | 3/23/2015
    Only days after stripping the disgraced pervert Cardinal, Keith O'Brien of his title and power and sending him to retire quietly in a £200,000 cottage, Pope Francis; amidst the outrage of the people of the Diocese of Osorno in Chile has permitted another bishop to take his Cathedra - a man implicated in the scandal of sodomy and perversion and the abuse of three men from the time they were boys. Is this to be considered another "who am I to judge" episode as with Msgr. Ricca appointed to a high position within the Vatican Bank? If so, then the...
  • Bishop backs Catholic school’s removal of teacher over pro-marriage comments [Catholic Caucus]

    03/23/2015 4:17:06 PM PDT · by 9thLife · 23 replies
    LifeSiteNews.com ^ | March 23, 2015 | Ben Johnson
    SOMERVILLE, NJ -- A Catholic school has decided not to rehire a theology teacher who rejected the argument in favor of gay “marriage” on her private Facebook page, her family has announced. The controversy began last week after a student found a Facebook post by Patricia Jannuzzi, a 57-year-old theology teacher at Immaculata High School in Somerville, New Jersey. In it, Jannuzzi said that advocates of redefining marriage argue that they “are born this way and it is not a choice, to get 14th amendment rights equal protection” – which was intended for “unchangeable characteristics such as race and disability.”...
  • Pray for our American Heroes

    03/23/2015 3:20:43 PM PDT · by Kitty Mittens · 11 replies
    3-23-15 | Kitty Mittens
    John 10:27-29 My Sheep hear My Voice, and I Know them, and they Follow Me: And I Give unto them Eternal Life; and they shall Never Perish, Neither shall Any Man Pluck them out of My Hand. My Father, Which Gave them Me, is Greater than All; And No Man is Able to Pluck them out of My Father's Hand.
  • Did the Catholic Church really support the Divine Right of Kings?

    03/23/2015 2:34:33 PM PDT · by walkinginthedesert · 65 replies
    Refuting the Belief that the Catholic Church ever supported the notion of the Divine Right of KingsI this article I will help to refute the false belief that the Catholic Church ever supported the so called “Divine Right” of kings. I will show that the concept of “Divine Right” is actually not a Catholic and for most part a medieval concept, but rather a concept which derived from the Late medieval ages, and which found its way into complete acceptance in the Protestant Reformation. Similarly I will show that to much extent the Catholic Church actually helped develop much of...
  • Pope Francis condemns gender theory a third time: ‘The family is under attack’

    03/23/2015 2:02:26 PM PDT · by NYer · 9 replies
    Life Site News ^ | March 23, 2015 | John-Henry Westen
    NAPLES, Italy, March 23, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- For at least the third time in his pontificate Pope Francis has used very strong language to condemn the gender theory, one of the intellectual underpinnings of the ‘LGBT’ agenda. Speaking Sunday with young people on his voyage to Naples, Italy, Pope Francis spoke of the “ideological colonization” of families seen throughout Europe and the West.“Gender theory is an error of the human mind that leads to so much confusion," he said. “So the family is under attack.” As to how to deal with the “secularization” or the “ideological colonization,” the pope said...