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He refused to be knocked out, even in death. The family of a Puerto Rican boxer — who was shot to death last week — honored his dying wish on Friday by propping up his corpse in the corner of a fake boxing ring to memorialize his career. Like an ashen wax figure, Christopher Rivera’s pale, embalmed body was positioned in the corner of the ring decked out in boxing gloves, a hoodie, shades and sneakers.

Divorce rate is higher among religiously conservative Protestants, and even among those living around them, finds a new study that examined all counties in the United States where divorces occurred and looked at what the characteristics of those counties were. Demographers Jennifer Glass at the University of Texas and Philip Levchak at the University of Iowa looked at the entire map of the United States, and found that a key factor predicting divorce rates is the concentration of conservative Protestants in a county. To be published in the American Journal of Sociology next month, the study notes that religiously conservative...

Vatican II, "Gaudium et spes" A man and a woman, who by the marriage covenant of conjugal love ‘are no longer two, but one flesh’, render mutual help and service to each other through an intimate union of their persons and of their actions. Through this union they experience the meaning of their oneness and attain to it with growing perfection day by day. As a mutual gift of two persons, this intimate union, as well as the good of the children, imposes total fidelity on the spouses and argues for an unbreakable oneness between them.

My mother's father died of cancer before I was born. My mother was pregnant with me, but had not told her father that she was to have a second child. The story I've been told is that they opened him up to remove the cancer -- and found it everywhere. They closed him back up and sent him home to die. Both of my mother's brothers died of cancer. All three of these men were heavy smokers, one ignored the signs of potential trouble for years, and all three died from cancer. My mother was diagnosed with cancer in 1978...

As you probably know by now, former Vikings punter Chris Kluwe went full-frontal on the Vikings last week -- accusing special teams coach Mike Priefer of being a "bigot" and implicating Leslie Frazier and Rick Spielman by association. He charged that Priefer made anti-gay slurs in the locker room, and in his initial post at Deadspin, Kluwe wrote: "If there's one thing I hope to achieve from sharing this story, it's to make sure that Mike Priefer never holds a coaching position again in the NFL, and ideally never coaches at any level." ... Interestingly, in a Tuesday appearance on...

The Supreme Court has put gay marriage on hold in Utah. The high court on Monday granted the state a stay in their same-sex marriage challenge. The decision comes after a federal judge last month ruled in favor of gay marriage.

From The Times of India: Women who take oral contraceptives regularly are at a higher risk of developing breast cancer compared to others, shows a study by AIIMS doctors. Breast cancer risk was found to be 9.5 times more in women with a history of consuming such pills. Early menstruation cycle, late marriage and lower duration of breastfeeding were the other major factors responsible for the disease amongIndians, according to the study published in the latest issue of the Indian Journal of Cancer.The study was conducted on 640 women, of which 320 were breast cancer patients.“We found long-term use of...

Many of you are aware that there is an Extraordinary Synod planned in Rome on the family.   There is surely no hiding the fact that the family is in real crisis, at least in the modern Western World, if not throughout many other parts as well. We do well to ponder the reasons and roots of this crisis, and develop strategies to begin to address the many problems.At the recent Bishops Conference Meeting here in America, Cardinal Sean O’Malley made some remarks that I would like to draw upon, even as I make some remarks of my own. Basing...

We’ve talked a good deal about the decline of marriage on this blog over the years. And our discussion must continue as the Synod on the family is planned in Rome.In my short 25 years as a priest I have experienced a major drop off in marriages. In my early years, I had about thirty weddings a year; now, about five or six. In this urban parish in which I have ministered for the larger part of 20 years, a beautiful and picturesque setting for a matrimonial sacrament, we used to have to turn couples away who were not members....

It is not difficult to demonstrate that most of our modern problems center around struggles and misunderstandings regarding marriage, sexuality, and the family. Collectively as a nation and the culture, we have departed significantly from the teachings of God and common sense, when it comes to our thinking and behavior regarding these three fundamental pillars.Today’s Feast of the Holy Family presents us an opportunity to reflect, and provides a rich tapestry of Scriptures. Many of these teachings are not “politically correct,” but for that, no apology should be made. They remain God’s teachings and it is hard to argue that...

New Study On Homosexual Parents Tops All Previous Research By Peter Sprigg Senior Fellow for Policy Studies   In a historic study of children raised by homosexual parents, sociologist Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas at Austin has overturned the conventional academic wisdom that such children suffer no disadvantages when compared to children raised by their married mother and father. Just published in the journal Social Science Research,[1] the most careful, rigorous, and methodologically sound study ever conducted on this issue found numerous and significant differences between these groups--with the outcomes for children of homosexuals rated "suboptimal" (Regnerus' word)...

The statistics are truly shocking. Children aged 12 to 17 are one of the largest consumer groups of online porn. Experts say this early exposure to sexually explicit video can hook kids on hardcore and often violent imagery. Shelley Lubben is a former adult film actress turned anti-porn advocate. In 2008, she created the pink cross foundation which offers resources for teens struggling with porn addiction. "We are raising a whole generation of porn addicts," says Shelley, "When you view pornography, it creates a chemical reaction in your brain, and for a youth who is in puberty, it's like a...

"Our house is as quiet as a tomb." So said a friend who's at the same stage of life -- that is, a mother of three with only one child still living at home. Her youngest, unlike mine, is an introvert, but like my Ben, he is exceedingly busy in his last years of high school, thus leaving the house echoing with emptiness. As a college sophomore, I visited my academic adviser with a problem. "I don't know what I'm going to do after graduation," I confessed. He cocked his head sideways. "Most people don't come to me with this...

Plan for Joy in Advent by Caitlin Marchand on December 9, 2013 ·  I love Advent.  Love love love it! Possibly my favourite season of the year. On the first Sunday we unpack the wreath and candles and begin our Advent prayer ritual, Advent hymns, at least a decade of the rosary, especially the first two Joyful Mysteries, and some Christmas carol practice.  One lucky child per night lights the candle, opens the door on this year’s little paper calendar and holds it up to the flame to illuminate the little picture inside.  Then he chooses one paper bundle from...

Over the past several decades, America has witnessed a profound change in the way women view men and marriage. It began with the baby boomer adage “never depend on a man.” This message resulted in a generation of women who turned their attention away from the home and onto the workforce. They did what their mothers told them to do: they became financially independent so they’d never have to rely on a husband. In time, “never depend on a man” turned into the full-blown belief that men are superfluous. In 2010 Jennifer Aniston claimed women needn’t “fiddle with a man”...

St. Jude's. Food drives. Toys 4 Tots. Coat collections. 'Tis the season for charity -- all the world's inspired by the Christmas spirit once Thanksgiving comes around. You can't help but wonder about the rest of the year, though. The word "solidarity" is a little worn, and, at times, poorly understood, but it refers to something more than a few sporadic acts of generosity. It presumes the creation of a new mindset that thinks in terms of community and the priority of the life of all over the appropriation of goods by a few. The Sunday before we celebrated...

CHELSEA, MICH. — Kristi and Michael Burns have a lot in common. They love crossword puzzles, football, going to museums and reading five or six books at a time. They describe themselves as mild-mannered introverts who suffer from an array of chronic medical problems. The two share similar marital résumés, too. On their wedding day in 2011, the groom was 43 years old and the bride 39, yet it was marriage No. 3 for both. Today, their blended family is a sprawling, sometimes uneasy ensemble of two sharp-eyed sons from her two previous husbands, a daughter and son from his...

Stay-at-home mums cooking lunch for the children while dads earn the money—Germans’ opinions on gender roles are more conservative today than they were in the 1990s, a survey revealed on Monday. Today just under half of women (48 percent) could imagine their husband taking a step back in his career to enable them to further their own, the Tagesspiegel reported. Back in 1993, the number was 54 percent who thought such a thing likely. Men have also hardened their views, with today 40 percent said they could see themselves putting a dent in their career to help their partners, while...