Who Are the War Criminals in Syria?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Last week, several polls came out assessing U.S. public opinion on intervention in Syria.

According to the Huffington Post poll, Americans oppose U.S. air strikes on Syria by 3-to-1. They oppose sending arms to the rebels by 4-to-1. They oppose putting U.S. ground troops into Syria by 14-to-1. Democrats, Republicans and independents are all against getting involved in that civil war that has produced 1.2 million refugees and 70,000 dead.

What Does a Typical Priest Look Like?

Most are from traditional Catholic families are not afraid of traditional devotions, according to a new survey

By Francis Phillips

Seminarians in New York. A new study paints an interesting picture of the type of men joining the priesthood CNS

There was an interesting article on Catholic World News for 2nd May. The headline caught my eye: “Typical new priest: 32-year-old cradle Catholic who prays Rosary, takes part in Eucharistic adoration.” Reading down I saw this was a survey of 366 out of 497 men to be ordained in the US this year. The headline itself was uplifting: these are mature men who emerge from Catholic families and who are not embarrassed to take part in traditional devotions. Thank God for them.

There were other significant features to the survey: the overwhelming number (81%) has two Catholic parents; 20% have five or more siblings, 10% have four siblings and 22% have three siblings. 4% have been home-schooled – at a time when less than 2% of US children are educated at home. This – admittedly small – survey indicates that having two Catholic parents undoubtedly makes it easier to develop a vocation. Both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis had Catholic fathers and mothers with a strong faith, who thus provided a balanced influence on their sons’ vocations. Again, larger families tend to produce more vocations than smaller ones. Perhaps this is because there are fewer material distractions in larger families, alongside greater opportunities for service? As it happens, I personally know of three priestly vocations from homeschooling families in the US. Again, such families tend to be large, counter-cultural and with a strong Catholic ethos.

Read more at the Catholic Herald >>

Father Rutler: The Cause of Our Joy

A weekly column by Father George Rutler.

Saint Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) was a man of many parts: scholar, mystic, poet, traveler, diplomat, debater, cardinal and even something of a scientist, as is evident in his exchanges with Galileo. He had the fine title of Professor of Controversial Theology at the Roman College, but that is a poor translation of what is known as “apologetics,” which means explaining something to doubters. His correspondence with the English king, James I, is a good example of how to do this and is a model for explaining the mystery of the Catholic Church to those in our worldly culture who imagine the Church to be just a human institution, and a regressive one at that.

The saint lists some fifteen “marks” of the Church’s supernatural character. One of these is the “unhappy end” of those who fight against her. History is littered with the detritus of figures great and small who took arms, physical and moral, against the Church. Some of the most notorious are embalmed and, ironically, on display in the lands they ruined, while the tomb of Christ is empty. Bellarmine did not gloat over this. His was not the happiness which Ambrose Bierce defined in his Devil's Dictionary of 1911 as “an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.” The saint spent his life trying to save the Church's enemies from an unhappy end. He wanted others to share in that other mark of the Church: the “temporal peace and earthly happiness of those who live by the Church’s teaching and defend her interests.” In his method of explaining the Church, Bellarmine sounds like Blessed Teresa of Calcutta who said, “People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.”

In the “pursuit of happiness” — which even our Declaration of Independence names as a natural right — the Church is not a casual option. Christ is the source and goal of true happiness. Pope Francis recently said, “No one comes to Christ without the Church.” Christ is the Bridegroom, and the Church is his Bride. To want Christ without the Church is like the corrupting conceit of cohabitation before marriage. Just as bulimia is an eating disorder, so conjugal life outside matrimony is a love disorder. The joy promised by our Lord is through, and not despite, full union with the Church which is his body.

The month of May especially celebrates Christ's mother as the Mother of the Church, a title used by Saint Ambrose and conferred officially by the Second Vatican Council. As Blessed John Paul II preached: “Mary embraces each and every one in the Church, and embraces each and every one through the Church.” All the sorrows of a perplexed world turn to joy through the mystery of the Church for the same reason hers did: “The Lord has risen as he promised.”

David Wigram - Ave Maria - Bach / Gounod

Charles C. Johnson: What Calvin Coolidge Teaches Us Today

This address is part of the Kirby Center Lecture series and was presented in Washington, D. C. on April 19, 2013.  Mr. Johnson is the author of Why Coolidge Matters: Leadership Lessons from America's Most Underrated President.

‘Gay Marriage’ or Religious Freedom: You Can’t Have Both

While we wait until June to find out how the U.S. Supreme Court will rule in its two "gay marriage" cases, perhaps it will add a little energy to our prayers to understand that the judges in black will be making a stark choice: The choice is either "gay marriage" or religious freedom, but not both.

If the court, in settling Hollingsworth v. Perry, affirms the desire of the minority to extend the sexual revolution to same-sex "marriage," then it will be a violation of the Constitution (specifically the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment) to claim that homosexual activity and hence homosexual "marriage" are wrong.

Note that both aspects are mentioned. If the law affirms "gay marriage" as a guaranteed right, it implicitly demands that all citizens likewise affirm homosexual activity of any and every kind.

In affirming same-sex "marriage" as a protected right, the Supreme Court will not just be making law — which is itself a violation of the separation of powers — it will be remaking morality.

To be more exact, it will be acting as an instrument of the ongoing (and now, nearly complete) sexual revolution against the Judeo-Christian understanding of sexuality and marriage.

And, to be even more exact, the court will be establishing secular liberalism ever more firmly as our state religion, the worldview that defines what is good and evil, and therefore defines what is legal and illegal.

Unfortunately, that is nothing new.

Read more at National Catholic Register >>

 

Archdiocese of Newark: One Resignation Submitted, One Still Needed

A Bad Shepherd: Archbishop John J. Myers

Archbishop John J. Myers probably thinks he's off the hook with the (forced?) resignation of Father Michael Fugee.  But as with another arrogant, corrupt American churchman, Cardinal Law, Myers is going to find it impossible to appear in public or say Mass in his own cathedral.  He's also going to find that Catholic school enrollments will drop and Sunday collections will dry up.  If he has any shred of decency, he will submit the resignation that the overwhelming number of Catholics in New Jersey and throughout the United States are demanding.  

You've wreaked ruin and destruction, Archbishop.  For God's sake, GO!

Call the Archdiocese of Newark and let Myers know what you think:  973-497-4000.

His spokesman, James Goodness, can be E-mailed at: goodneja@rcan.org

The Pope's representative to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, can be reached at 202-333-7121.

Priest at center of Newark Archdiocese scandal quits ministry

The Roman Catholic priest at the center of a public furor enveloping Newark Archbishop John J. Myers has resigned from ministry, a spokesman for the archdiocese said tonight.

The Rev. Michael Fugee, who attended youth retreats and heard confessions from minors in defiance of a lifetime ban on such behavior, submitted his request to leave ministry this afternoon, said the spokesman, Jim Goodness. Myers promptly accepted the resignation, Goodness said.

Fugee, 52, remains a priest but no longer has authority to say Mass, perform sacramental work or represent himself as an active priest, Goodness said. It was not immediately clear if Fugee or Myers would petition the Vatican to remove him from the priesthood altogether, a process known as laicization.

Asked if Myers had requested that Fugee step aside, Goodness said, “I only know that he offered to leave ministry and the archbishop accepted.”

Under terms of a 2007 agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, Fugee is not permitted to have unsupervised contact with children, minister to children or hold any position in which children are involved.

Read more at the Star-Ledger >>

 

New Jersey Legislators Demand Archbishop's Resignation; Call Myers' Behavior "Sickening"

"And see if there are any vacant basilicas in Rome where I can hideout like Cardinal Law"

Greeting the deepest crisis of his 12-year tenure with silence, Newark Archbishop John J. Myers faced new calls for his resignation yesterday from two New Jersey lawmakers, who blasted him for allowing a priest to minister to children despite a lifetime ban on such interaction.

Sen. Joseph Vitale (D-Middlesex) and Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Bergen) said the archbishop has displayed "arrogance" and a lack of common sense over his handling of the Rev. Michael Fugee, 52, who admitted fondling a 14-year-boy in 2001.

Under the terms of a binding agreement with authorities six years later, Fugee and the archdiocese vowed the priest would not work in any position involving children.

Yet for the past several years, Fugee has attended youth retreats, heard confessions from minors in private rooms and traveled to Canada with children from a Monmouth County parish, The Star-Ledger reported earlier this week.

"Enough is enough," said Vitale, who has pushed for laws that aid victims of sexual abuse. "Based on everything that’s happened, not just in New Jersey but around the country and the world, you have to follow the spirit of the law, and they have not done that in this case. Zero tolerance is zero tolerance."

Read more at the Star-Ledger >>