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I am not posting the image. Someone else will I'm sure.

Drones are to be banned from the airspace over the centre of Rome, during the Year of Mercy as a precaution against ISIS attacks. In the wake of the Paris attacks, Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said on Monday that drones will be banned from the airspace from December 8, as the Year of Mercy is due to attract millions of tourists to the Italian capital.Addressing the Italian Parliament, Mr Alfano said that security would be tightened around any potential target, particularly around St Peter’s Square, he said: “Particular attention has been dedicated to the risk of an attack...

Retired neurosurgeon turned presidential candidate Ben Carson has doubled down on his crazy theory about the pyramids. Not only is it false, his idea also minimizes the wonder of God's creation by implying that human beings are not creative enough to build the majestic Egyptian landmarks on their own. At a commencement address at Andrews University in 1998, Carson argued that the biblical prophet Joseph built the pyramids as grain silos for the seven fat years recorded in Genesis. Scholars of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, feel free to laugh now. Everyone else, go ahead, join in. The archaeological evidence...

In the address of Pope Francis to participants at the national ecclesial conference of last November 10, in the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, we find three features of his communication strategy: the theological-spiritual, the intra-ecclesiastical, and the explicit, prescriptive pastoral focus. The pope duly covered all three, amid repeated applause, interesting for its different intensity depending on the different tone and content of the talk. I will permit myself to observe, because it is not extraneous to what I will say, that the pope could have avoided rather than invited the applause, which in its way...

We had a wonderful weekend with Cardinal Burke. I don't have time to blog about it now, and I won't have time tomorrow, but I will do so thereafter. As well as liturgies and public speaking, His Eminence granted an interview with Mass of Ages, the LMS Magazine. As a tiny taster, when asked what Catholics should do when confronted with bad teaching, he said: I think Catholics should simply say that "I cannot accept this teaching as it goes against what the Church has always taught and practiced." I don't think that Catholics should permit themselves to be driven...

Georgetown University has announced it will rename two buildings which were named for former presidents with ties to slavery. No word yet on the Jesuit university recanting all the honors it has bestowed on pro-abortion politicians. Now, according to the Washington Post, the Jesuits owned slaves and sold them to pay off debt? Wow. I'd never heard that. That's a pretty large and glaring gap in Matt's historical knowledge right there. Kind of embarrassing, huh? So that's clearly a bad thing the Jesuits did. But it seems to me that it's kinda' interesting the timing of G'town's decision to rename...

AN OPEN LETTER TO POPE FRANCIS Most Holy Father, Bishop of Rome, Francis: I note your overture to a Lutheran woman at the Lutheran church on Via Sicilia in Rome on 15 November 2015, the one who asked about intercommunion (starting minute 21.00 on the Vatican YouTube video). I had to wonder before if your recent interview with Eugenio Scalfari was correctly reported. I now have no doubt. With due respect to your person and your office, I ask you not to make this kind of thing part of what you want to publish about the Synod with the authority...

For many American Christians, the Paris attacks have revealed a conflict between two priorities: The cause of persecuted Middle Eastern Christians and a hard line on security. Following reports that one of the Paris attackers had a Syrian passport and had allegedly registered as a refugee, multiple GOP presidential candidates called for bans on Syrian refugees. On Monday, multiple GOP governors joined in. Considering the United States has absorbed fewer than 2,000 Syrians, this may seem like political posturing, but Congress is set later this year to debate funding for another 10,000 who President Obama has said he wants to...

The Secretary of the Vatican State, reaffirms that there will be no step back: We are launching a campaign of mercy. The events in Paris don't change anything in the Pope's agenda. VATICAN CITY - Respond with mercy and hospitality to violence. The Secretary of the Vatican State, Pietro Parolin, has confirmed that the Jubilee (from December 8th 2015 to November 20th 2016) is on schedule, as the spokesman for the Holy See, Padre Lombardi had already said, and that, in fact, will be open also to Muslims. "In a world torn by violence, it is the right time to...

Russia is a bulwark for good, resisting an evil which has worked its way deep into the fabric of western societyWinston Churchill, in describing Russia, suggested it was a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. As the world is increasingly forced to pay closer attention to Russia, many may look on with a mixture of curiosity, admiration and mystification, wondering what makes Russia tick. In trying to explain Russian culture, Russians may direct the enquiring foreigner to their literature. And in this literature one will soon be met with the recurring theme of the Russian soul, an idea...

The first thing we should know is that nearly one in four people in the world today is a Muslim. 1.7 billion people in the world pray to Allah as their god. To be technical, this works out to be 23% of the world’s population are Muslims. At the end of WWI, that is about 100 years ago, the estimated Muslim population in the world was 300 million. In this relatively short time they have grown from 300 million to 1.7 billion. This is phenomenal growth. This growth does not come from evangelism, it is from having lots and lots...

Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney has decried as "astonishing and truly alarming" a move to bring another Australian archbishop before an anti-discrimination commission because of a pamphlet defending marriage. Archbishop Julian Porteous of Hobart is the target of a discrimination complaint filed with a government commission in the state of Tasmania. The complaint is based on the archbishop's distribution of a pamphlet prepared by the Australian bishops to encourage support for marriage.

Le Point reports that the American rock group Eagles of Death Metal, traumatized by the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday night, have now returned home to California. They were reportedly in the middle of a song aptly entitled Kiss the Devil when the killers stormed the concert hall and starting killing people. How about some lyrics from that song by this "fun-loving" American band: Who'll love the devil?... Who'll song his song?... Who will love the devil and his song?... I'll love the devil!... I'll sing his song!... I will love the devil and his song!... Who'll love the...

Certainly this new Vatileaks season prompts us to reflect on the way Pope Francis is carrying out his reform. Three years after the first big Vatileaks episode, it seems that the same old Vatican world that opposed Benedict XVI is still alive and active behind Pope Francis. The only difference is that this world elected Pope Francis. Pope Francis owes his election to it. We should look back to Benedict XVI's reform in order to understand the basis on which Pope Francis' reform is grounded. The issues have remained the same. Pope Francis perhaps is trying to overcome them through...

On the nativity fast - the preparation of the soul Written by M.C. Steenberg. A reflection on the role of the Nativity Fast, which might seem the opposite of Christmas joy, in preparing the human heart for the true joy of encountering Christ's incarnation.   'Make ready, O Bethlehem: let the manger be prepared, let the cave show its welcome. The truth has come, the shadow has passed away...' {footnote}Sticheron at the Royal Hours, by St Sophronius of Jerusalem.{/footnote} The herald of the pending miracle begins. It is the Eve of the Nativity as these words are sung. The...

The time of preparation before the great feast of the Nativity of Christ (i.e. “Christmas”) is, through the wisdom of our holy fathers, intended to be a time of purposeful asceticism, almsgiving, and learning to say “yes” to God while saying “no” to one’s own desires. Christmas (especially in the present day) has become a time of great anxiety and materialism for many, despite the fact that most every song one hears, most every retail ad that one reads, and most every film with “Christmas” as a theme that one watches will try to convince them that Christmas is a...

The trials and tribulations of the Crawley family have enthralled Downton Abbey viewers for six series. But some have questioned why Christianity, which would have formed a central part of the lives of the aristocracy in the early 20th century, is largely absent from the show. Now the man tasked with ensuring the historical accuracy of the series has revealed why Downton does not do God. Alastair Bruce, who serves as the show’s historical advisor, said that executives in charge of the series had ordered producers to “leave religion out of it”, for fear of alienating an increasingly atheistic public....

Kaliningrad, November 16, Interfax - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia called terrorism a new form of obsession and called for it to be fought not only using military methods, but also through education and culture. "The world is now faced with a different obsession, a different madness, which we call terrorism," the patriarch said after a liturgy in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Kaliningrad on Sunday. He said the tragedy that has occurred in Paris indicates "people's obsession to achieve political goals using any methods, even by destroying innocent people." "The fight against terrorism should not...

Sergiyev Posad, November 16, Interfax - The Russian Orthodox Church has called on people to learn the right lessons from the terrorist attacks in Paris and mobilize to fight terrorism. "I am deeply grieved for people, and those are right who sympathize and pray for victims killed in the French capital. Eternal memory to these people. May the Lord be merciful to them in His judgement. What has happened is not only a reason for grief, it's also a reason to ask yourself: is it not a lesson to us all, can Europe continue living like it lived before? And...