A Look Back at World Youth Day: Some of the Crowd for Via Crucis

These people are gathered in front of the Stations of the Cross. This is only one side of one street, there are more packed streets including the street the Holy Father will pass in his Pope-mobile. Is it any wonder that some have said the Holy Father was moved to tears by this expression of faith in the heart of Europe?  "If then any be in Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away, behold all things are made new."

Westminster Cathedral Choir - 'Sicut Cervus Desiderat' - Giovanni Palestrina

No words can convey the ineffable beauty of this sacred music. It truly must be what heaven sounds like.  Listen, let it envelop you and touch the divine!

Is Marriage for White People?

From Fox News

By Ralph Richard Banks

Editor's note: The following is adapted from the introduction to the new book "Is Marriage for White People: How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone" by Stanford University Law Professor Ralph Richard Banks. For more, visit the website: ismarriageforwhitepeople.com.

On a bitter cold day in January 2009, throngs formed on the National Mall in the predawn darkness, and as the skies lightened the crowd swelled to a million strong. Children atop fathers’ shoulders; old ladies in wheelchairs thankful to have lived to see this day; college students barely old enough to vote; white-collar professionals with rooms at four-star hotels; and blue-collar workers who had journeyed three days by bus—they came from all parts of the nation and all walks of life to join in the making of history.

My family had made the journey as well. Like most people, we had never attended a presidential inauguration. And I was hesitant to go to this one—concerned about the cost, the crowds, our children missing school—but my wife, a woman who by her own admission never cared much for politics, insisted. So from California to D.C., with three young boys in tow, we went.

Washington National Cathedral Receives $25,000 from Roman Catholic Archdiocese

From Episcopal News Service

By ENS Staff

Members of faith communities locally in Washington and across the country have rallied around Washington National Cathedral in its time of need following last week's magnitude-5.8 earthquake. In the first gesture of a faith community's financial support, Cardinal Donald Wuerl sent a check for $25,000 on behalf of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington to help toward the costs of repair work, according to a press release.

Washington National Cathedral, the sixth-largest cathedral in the world and the second-largest such church in the United States, sustained millions of dollars in damage in the Aug. 23 earthquake, including significant damage to the central tower, where finials or capstones, which are shaped like fleurs-de-lis, fell off three of the four pinnacles. 

Has the Obama Depression Arrived?

Employers added no net workers last month for the first time since February 1945 as unemployment rate remains unchanged at 9.1 percent.

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Benedict XVI: Art is a Doorway to God

From The Catholic Herald (UK)

Pope attends concert at Castel Gandolfo in his honor 

 

Beautiful art is not just for cultural enrichment but is an important way to experience God and become aware of the human thirst for the infinite, Pope Benedict XVI has said.

A sculpture, a painting, a poem or a piece of music can arouse a feeling of joy when it becomes apparent it is something more than just a chunk of marble, a canvas covered with colours, or words or notes on a page, he said.

“It’s something bigger, something that speaks and touches your heart; it carries a message and lifts the spirit,” he said as he held his weekly general audience in the town square at Castel Gandolfo.

Federal Judge Rules in Obama Fraudulent SSN Case: Says It Doesn't Matter if President Broke the Law!