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One of the most concise and cogent descriptions of these often strident times came from Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in 1986. It is contained in, of all places, his treatise on the theology of sacred music in a book called The Feast of Faith (Ignatius Press, 1986). His comments have been republished in a larger compendium of his works, Collected Works: Theology of the Liturgy (Ignatius Press, 2014, Vol 11). It is hard to describe our times as anything but contentious. Loud, strident protests often predominate over reasoned discourse and thoughtful argumentation.To be sure, every era has had, and has needed,...

“As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear” (Proverbs 25:12).

Damon Diessner tried for years to slim down from his weight of more than 400 pounds, partly because his size embarrassed his wife but even more because his doctors told him he was at risk of developing type 2 diabetes. His hemoglobin A1c level, a blood-sugar marker, was 6.3%, just below the diabetes range of 6.5%. Then, two years ago, one of his doctors helped get him into a YMCA-run Diabetes Prevention Program not far from his home in Redmond. The group classes, at first held in person and then via Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic, were led by a...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In an unprecedented attack on democracy, former President Donald Trump has managed to sneak back into the White House hidden within a gigantic Trojan ice cream cone. Experts suggest this may be the fulfillment of prophecy that foretold the glorious return of the true President who actually won the "rigged, total disaster" of an election. "WOW! Chocolate chocolate chip!" said President Biden as the massive frozen confection was rolled across the White House lawn up to his front door. Overcome with desire, Biden dove face-first into the cone and began to try to swallow it whole like an anaconda....

Universities are to be forced to to deduct marks for poor written English in students' work - and will face tough sanctions if they fail to do so. Under proposals by the Office for Students (OfS) regulator, universities will be required to teach students 'relevant skills', assess them 'effectively' and ensure that any qualifications they issue are 'credible'.... ...The move is intended to tackle poor quality courses and comes three months after The Mail on Sunday revealed the use of 'inclusive assessment' at some institutions under which technical ability in written English was not assessed.... ...'If UK Universities are to...

The death toll has climbed in the central China city of Zhengzhou as it grapples with the aftermath of flooding, pumping water from tunnels, thick mud on roads, and cleaning up debris. More questions over the authorities’ preparedness have been raised on China’s social media.Twelve million people in Zhengzhou city experienced severe rainfall since Saturday, and the city saw record-breaking downpour between 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. local time on Tuesday, with more than 201 mm (8 inches) in one hour, according to the meteorological authority.The water on the street was almost waist high on Tuesday afternoon, but subways kept...

Disney princesses such as Elsa from Frozen do not damage young girls' self-esteem and 'may be a powerful force for good', according to new research. US academics studied more than 300 girls and boys and their parents to discover how 'princess culture' affected attitudes over time towards gender stereotypes, body esteem and masculinity. Previous research had suggested the fictional characters beloved by generations of cinemagoers and TV viewers promoted negative female stereotypes by indoctrinating little girls at a young age... ...[Dr Coyne] said that many of the storylines in the latest generation of movies involve working hard to pursue dreams,...

The Upside-Down ChurchPope Francis can’t rest until all Catholics are modernists.Pope Francis has often compared the Catholic Church to a “field hospital.” It is an odd analogy in his case, given his penchant for quackery and malpractice. The healthiest patients at his field hospital have their limbs hacked off while the sickest ones receive increased dosages of a medicine that doesn’t work. The pope’s conception of health in the body of Christ is the opposite of his predecessors. They saw the absence of orthodoxy as a cancer in the Church, whereas Pope Francis sees the persistent presence of orthodoxy as...

In two separate incidents on July 14 and 17, Chinese nationals working on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Pakistan and Mali were attacked. Among them, nine Chinese nationals in Pakistan died, and three in Mali were kidnapped.According to Dawn, a local news network in Pakistan, on July 14, a bus full of laborers on its way to a local construction site, exploded and fell into a ravine killing 13 and injuring 28. Among the 13 killed, nine were Chinese nationals. They were heading towards the site of a tunnel being built as part...

Just got the following email from Shutterfly : Dear ————, We’re updating our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, reflecting our ongoing commitment to be transparent about how we use your data and keep it safe. We invite you to read our policies in full, but in summary, we updated our Privacy Notice to further explain: When we might share a user’s information with law enforcement or government agencies, for example, if use of our services indicates criminal activity or poses a danger to the safety of others. How our face grouping feature automatically groups similar faces together when you...

California is experiencing a wave of crime despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s claims of a decrease during the past three decades, officials say.“You’ve got violent crime off the charts,” Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert told The Epoch Times. “You’ve got this tsunami of things that are happening. Violent crime, illegal guns, [and] rampant theft.”On July 21 in Los Angeles, when asked if state policies are making crime worse, Newsom denied the state is seeing a rise in crime.“The evidence doesn’t back it up. Last three decades we’ve actually seen a significant decline in crime in the state,” Newsom said.According...

In an effort to help end the pandemic, an international coalition of medical experts is holding worldwide events Saturday to raise awareness about the effectiveness of ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19.Organizers of the World Ivermectin Day say doctors and supporters of the inexpensive FDA-approved drug will host free online and public events in over a dozen countries.Two nonprofits—Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care (FLCCC) Alliance and the British Ivermectin Recommendation Development (BIRD) group—who have been campaigning for the off-label use of ivermectin to prevent and treat COVID-19 say the event’s focus is to let more people know that the antiparasitic...

Latest leftist to demand Trump supporters be forcibly re-educated 'It's time to deprogram the cult leaders' A blog posting that offers support to President Trump warns that "deprogrammed" and "re-educated" are words that almost always are connected to violence.

Click here to read the full articleIlhan Omar has many ques­tion­able issues with her past relat­ed to her name and her family’s con­nec­tions with the bru­tal Barre regime.Ilhan Omar wrote to the Biden Admin­is­tra­tion yesterday.I have been deeply engaged on this question throughout my time in Congress, not only focused on the legal merits of individual strikes, but on how our militarized counter-terrorism approach to al-Shabaab fits into our overall strategy and policy towards Somalia,” Omar wrote in a letter to the White House on Friday. “In that respect, it is noteworthy that this week also saw reporting on the...

One of the first things that Joe Biden did when he took office was to stop the building of President Donald Trump’s border wall and change Trump policies in regard to the border.Not only has Joe’s approach been an abject failure, with the flood of illegal aliens coming in record numbers, stopping the wall has had a big cost, as well.Trump built 450 miles of wall, but now, Biden is actually paying a ton of money out to not build the wall — to suspend the construction projects for the wall — even as migrants pour in.From Fox News: The...

In March 28, 2021, Syrian replied to Electronic Intifada's Ali Abunimah: Zaher Atassi (@AtassiZaher) Tweeted [https://twitter.com/AtassiZaher/status/1376130530375299072?s=20] : "The Israeli Democracy is flawed". Said the supporter of a totalitarian dictatorship which tortured hundreds of thousands to death, and its leader who inherited the presidency from his father that led an openly racist arab supremacist party. ____ (Nevermind that the Israeli democracy government has an Arab coalition which extracts now even more money for preferential treatment routing for Arabs in Israel...vs Pallywood Ali Abunimah "accusations" but 'Aparthrid ethnic cleansing Palestine' Mahmoud Abbas declared that no Israeli will stay in an envisioned State.)

July 25 , 2021Memorial of St. James the greater, Apostle Basilica of St. James, Levoča, Slovakia Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green First reading2 Kings 4:42-44 ©They will eat, and have some left overA man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing Elisha, the man of God, bread from the first-fruits, twenty barley loaves and fresh grain in the ear.’ ‘Give it to the people to eat’, Elisha said. But his servant replied, ‘How can I serve this to a hundred men?’ ‘Give it to the people to eat’ he insisted ‘for the Lord says this, “They will eat and have some left over.”’...

This is one of those “make of it what you will” stories.In July of 2020, the Trump administration began a crackdown on Chinese intelligence activities in the United States.The Trump administration is intensifying U.S. pressure on China, piling on visa bans, sanctions and other restrictions that are battering already unsettled ties between the world’s two largest economies.Attorney General William Barr, in a speech Thursday, warned U.S. businesses that they are at risk of collaborating with a Chinese government that ultimately seeks to supplant them in its expanding state-run economy. Administration officials are also discussing banning travel by China’s Communist Party...

23andMe was co-founded by YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki — YouTube is owned by Google.Seeing as how Google has been trying to get into the pharmaceutical business, is 23andMe an extension of that designed to profile individuals and target them with new drugs?A man and his wife decided to test the accuracy of 23andMe’s at-home DNA testing kit by sending in a saliva sample collected from their pet lizard. What they found is that the whole thing is a sham.In the following video, the man explains how after three months of waiting, he received anomalous results suggesting that his pet lizard...

I don’t know how many protests, solidarity movements, refugees, human rights alerts, economic collapses, and purges are going to get this message through everyone’s heads, Communism is a terrible system of governance. In fact, at this point, we should be consistent. Any government that does not guarantee as to the very justification for its existence, individual rights, open markets, and accountable governance, is worth challenging.I am of course referring to the ongoing protest in Cuba, to which those on the far left will shamefully attribute to the US embargo on the Communist regime. Others may simply beat around the bush...