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On the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar, today is the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, more commonly known as the Feast of Christ the King. The last Sunday of the liturgical year (next week is Advent!), this feast reminds us that whatever earth powers may do or ask of us, Christ is the true king that should reign in our hearts. Here are 8 things about this awesome feast you may not have known:

The National "Catholic" Reporter assures us that, "The priesthood of the future will include married and celibate, male and female, gay and straight." See here. In his book "Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today," then Cardinal Ratzinger and now Pope Benedict XVI, writing about futile reform and the "naive arrogance of the self-appointed enlightener who is convinced that previous generations did not get it right, or else were too fearful and unilluminated," explains the thinking of such deluded souls: "It thus appears [for these adolescent Catholics] as the most normal thing in the world to make up for lost...

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"F--- The Police" postercorpse Michael Brown's grave remains unmarked, while his parents prioritized going on stage at BET Hip-Hop Awards, addressing the U.N. (LOL) in Switzerland “Credit to CNN for not using the word ‘murder’ …” “So let me guess, that ‘stop killing us’ t-shirt is directed at blacks, the primary killers of blacks by a vast margin, right?"

1) You learned how to spell with this song: [video] 2) You survived a Fear Factor inspired eating game. 3) You’ve been to Mexico for a mission/service trip. 4) You’ve given your “testimony” to a large group before. 5) Your public prayers are filled with “Father God” and “just…” 6) You learned just enough on the guitar to lead worship songs with 4 chords.

Yesterday, Archbishop Blase Cupich began his tenure as the Archdiocese of Chicago’s 9th prelate. My wife and I were blessed a few weeks ago to attend one final young adult “Pub Night” with the archbishop before he vacated his seat as Bishop of the Diocese of Spokane, where he spoke on the Pope’s encyclical “Joy of the Gospel” and took questions from the audience on anything and everything. Lots of people have been saying lots of things about Pope Francis’ recent selection – good and bad, Christian and un-Christian, smart and dumb – but at the end of the day,...

Turkey was once one of the most religiously tolerant majority Muslim societies in its attitude toward Jews. The reason wasn’t so much tolerant political culture, but rather a belief that the Jews were a tranquil, loyal minority. After all, Turkish school books taught that while Greeks, Armenians, and Arabs all rose up against the Ottomans, the Jews did not. Hence, Turkey boasted along with Iran either the second or third largest Jewish community in the Middle East after Israel itself. In recent years, of course, this has changed. Just as...

The term “fundamentalist” is a pejorative term today, used to label someone the speaker believes is an irrational religious extremist of some kind. But a hundred years ago, the term was taken as a badge of honor by theologically conservative Protestants to distinguish themselves from liberal Protestantism. While liberal Protestants in mainline denominations were denying basic Christian teachings like the authority of the Bible and the bodily resurrection of Jesus, conservative Protestants called for going back to the “fundamentals” of the faith – hence the term. There are obviously a lot of issues on which Catholics and fundamentalists disagree, but...

One out of every five Americans shares something about their faith online, the Pew Research Center reported this week, and 46 percent of Americans saw a faith-related posting online. While sharing a Bible verse or religious image isn't the same as walking up to a stranger and offering a religious tract, several evangelical observers point out that the more common sharing of faith online can lead to more serious conversations.

Don’t expect to see any breakout sessions on the bumper sticker “You Can’t Be Both Catholic and Pro-Choice” at the meeting this week of the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops in Baltimore. And you probably won’t be allowed to take part in any discussions about clarity from the bishops regarding how Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and Patrick Murphy can be both Catholic and pro-abortion. The demoted Cardinal Raymond Burke, former St. Louis archbishop, is saying the church “is like a ship without a rudder” under Pope Francis. (1) The Illinois Catholic Conference of state church leaders called abortion and related issues...

The “What People Think I Do / What I Really Do” meme is a clever way of poking fun at stereotypes vs. reality. We’ve assembled some of the best related to Christianity from around the web. Enjoy!

Test and fine-tune your modernist-church-detection abilities against your communist-architecture-detection skills! It's harder than you think...

Are you looking for a spellbinding novel with deeply Catholic themes, compelling characters, and exquisite prose? Well, if you’ve been confining your search to Barnes and Noble’s family-friendly Christian fiction shelf, I’m here to tell you that you’re missing out. As a reader, you have probably heard of Dean Koontz. He has sold 450 million copies of his books in 38 languages, making him one of the most successful writers in the world. And while his stories have been categorized as science fiction, fantasy, thriller, and horror, he’s also considered by many readers to be the world’s best Catholic author...

Among Republicans, the numbers are even more dramatic: 59 percent said that they believe that churches should speak out on the political issues of the day; 53 percent don’t believe that political leaders spend enough time talking about their faith; and 72 percent believe that it is important that members of Congress have strong religious beliefs. Clearly, they want to get a better sense of the faith that animates a politician’s values and how grounded they are in their faith. Many Americans have come to understand that if you know about a candidate’s faith then you can get a pretty...

The lies and lawlessness, the usurpation of government by totalitarian criminals must end. We can do this. We must do this. Period. VOTE! On Tuesday, every one of We the People who is old enough needs to get out and vote. Period. No excuses. The Democrats have nearly destroyed free, capitalist, constitutional America, and if they are not soundly, roundly, and decisively defeated, they will do so. Period. Repeat, PERIOD. Misleadership of the party – McConnell, Boehner, and their lackeys and toadies – have made it painfully clear that they are not conservatives

Have you heard about Pope Francis’ recent comments about God, evolution, and Creation? If so, chances are you’ve heard wrong. Here are four things you should know:

The Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic looks very normal on the outside... (see pics at the link)

I was sitting on a bean bag in my dorm room when I got the call. It was a friend of mine — let’s call her “Sara” — and she was sobbing so hard it took me a moment to know who it was. Finally, she pulled herself together enough to speak. With a voice that sounded as weary as if she had aged 100 years since the last time we talked, she said, “I’m pregnant.” My heart sunk on her behalf. I was completely pro-choice and didn’t find the idea of abortion to be troubling, but I knew that...

We live in dangerous and stressful times. The margin for error in our fight for the survival of America is very small. The number of people willing to surrender their genuine freedoms for a little faux security is growing. We are a strong and resilient people but even the strongest die eventually. We who pull the American wagon and recognize that nothing worth anything is free, especially our precious liberty, can only go on just so long. The whiney and the greedy are not our friends regardless of who they are or claim to be. It is, therefore, an unfortunate...

I’ll call him Fr. John. He was a charismatic Anglo Catholic priest. A friend of my brother Daryl’s we’ll call Henry died suddenly in a plane crash and he was upset because although Henry was a believer he was away from God when he died. So Fr. John said, “We have to have a requiem Mass for Henry.” They went into church and locked the door for privacy’s sake. Another priest we’ll call Fr. George celebrated the Mass. Henry was about twenty years old. He was just over five foot tall with a shock of blonde hair and a wide...