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A number of students at St. John's University in New York are protesting the administration's invitation to Republican Peter King to speak at their commencement ceremony next month. King is pro-life and pro-marriage so the usual red flags are avoided. But a petition created by students which already has over 1,119 signatures alleges that King is unfit to speak at the commencement because he has made "discriminatory and offensive" remarks in the past. The petition alleges that King's hearings on the dangers of Islamic radicalization amount to "trials against American-Muslims" which contradict the mission of the university to respect the...

Congratulations graduates on your achievement. You managed to finish four years of expensive babysitting, ostensibly designed to prepare you for life, even though it bears absolutely no resemblance to it. Well, except for the fact that most of you have racked up inordinate amounts of debt with very little of value to show for it. That part resembles life quite well, actually. These speeches are called commencement addresses for a reason, they are supposed to be about the beginning of things. You have completed one thing and now you begin another, real life. Every commencement, by statute, must talk about...

A University of Buffalo (SUNY) professor was arrested for screaming obscenities at an administration approved graphic pro-life display. While cursing profusely, she accused the pro-lifers of being "profane." The video below shows the arrest along with the professor cursing and finally yelling out to surrounding students to tell her 1 p.m. class that she wouldn't be able to teach that day because she was being taken away in handcuffs. I contacted the media relations department at UB and they confirmed the arrest. John DellaContrada, Assistant Vice President for Media Relations at UB, told CMR that: "Laura Curry was arrested and...

Alisa Lapolt Snow, the Planned Parenthood lobbyist, who shocked the nation with her defense of live birth abortions in front of a Florida House committee, served on the board of Catholic Charities of Northwest Florida. Read More

My wife recently chaperoned a dance for junior high schoolers at a Catholic school. She working the door when another of the chaperones, a father of one of the students in attendance, hurried over and asked her what he was supposed to do about an eighth grade girl making out with an 8th grade guy in the middle of the dance floor. “That’s not ok, is it?” he asked her. “Should we be doing something about this?” The man truly didn’t know what his responsibilities were. My wife was stunned by the question. She was about to answer when another...

Ecumenism is a hot topic right now, particularly dialogue with Islam. But whenever I consider dialogue and ecumenism with Islam I always come back to one question. What is the point? By this question, I don't intend sarcastic commentary that any and all dialogue is fruitless. I mean it at face value. To measure the success of any endeavor, you must know what it is we wish to achieve by it. So what do we hope to achieve with better dialogue with Islam? First, may I suggest that it is not possible to have fruitful dialogue with Islam itself, but...

Some "Catholic" LGBT organizations were seemingly in a race to cast the first disparaging remark against the new Pope. The Equally Blessed coalition seemingly won the day by labeling the Pope "hateful" within hours of Cardinal Bergoglio's ascendancy to the papacy. Equally Blessed is an organization which includes participation from DignityUSA, New Ways Ministry, Call To Action, and Fortunate Families. Pro-homosexual organizations all. Their statement which was quoted in many news reports seems to indicate their shock that Pope Francis would be pro-traditional marriage and not in favor of gay adoption: "If he truly desires to share the Gospel with...

The pre-conclave era has its first bumper crop, unsolicited advice for the new pontiff and the Church. Following the laws of supply and demand, the value of this crop is diminished by its very abundance. As such, I am reticent to throw my golden nugget onto the pile of leaden advice, yet I must. I have no advice on what geographical region from whence the new Pope should ascend, nor do I care about the color of his skin. I don't know if charisma need be among his charisms. I would not presume to tell the future pontiff or the...

An excerpt from an interview with a President in the future... Amid conservative anger over the President's proposals to curb religious violence, the President says he sometimes attends Church. Asked if he ever attends Church, the President said he did so occasionally when visitors to his retreat were interested in that sort of thing. "Up at Camp David, we do service all the time," he said. "And I have a profound respect for the traditions of religion that trace back in this country for generations." "And I think those who dismiss that out of hand make a big mistake". The...

I want you to remember something in the coming weeks and months. Sometimes good Catholics disagree. How I wish there was more quiet time, more time to grieve, before political bloodletting followed upon actual bloodletting. We no longer have room or time to breathe. We gasp and then we yell. At least that is what it seems like. But we were not granted the time. Most of those beautiful children in Newtown have yet to be laid to rest, but the big headlines are already political and the side stories are of lives lost. Within days, we won't even have...

I am stunned that I was stunned by the election. I am a fool. I convinced myself that the polls were not real. I convinced myself that the world I see around me every day is not real. I hoped for a redemptive moment without seeing any penitence. You can't have one without the other. I, along with countless others, have been trying to figure out how President Obama managed to win a second term. Trying to discover the key statistic that would explain the defeat has become a cottage industry over the past week. Every pundit on every side...

I am stunned that I was stunned by the election. I am a fool. I convinced myself that the polls were not real. I convinced myself that the world I see around me every day is not real. I hoped for a redemptive moment without seeing any penitence. You can't have one without the other. I, along with countless others, have been trying to figure out how President Obama managed to win a second term. Trying to discover the key statistic that would explain the defeat has become a cottage industry over the past week. Every pundit on every side...

Make no mistake, the meeting of pro-life Democrats was only near the Democrat National Convention and not at it. A group of pro-life Democrats gathered in a hotel near the convention the way that a teenage boy stalks the house of the girl who dumped him, with love unrequited. This year not a single pro-life Democrat was allowed to speak at the convention, a convention that adopted the most radical pro-abortion plank possible while at the same time expunging any mention of God. I think God is happy that at least they have stopped pretending. But the pro-lifers in the...

...These gloomy jackasses are the very same people who forced Mitt Romney on the conservatives in the first place with the mantra "He can Win! Its all about winning!" And now these mealy mouthed cowards are already trying to set up conservatives for blame if their hand-selected winnable candidate loses. I hate these people. Stop it! Shut up! You are idiots! You want to know how you get Hispanic voters? I will tell you. Govern like a principled conservative, be the party of liberty, life, and prosperity and Hispanics will see that it works and then they will vote for...

For sure, Cardinal Dolan has been the outspoken champion of the Church's rights and the rights of individuals to practice their religion in public free from coercive immoral mandates. For this and by virtue of his position in the Church, he rightly deserves our praise, respect, and a fair amount of trust. Cardinal Dolan, We trust you. I trust you. But I also have a warning for you. You wrote about what the perception would be if you refused to meet with the President saying "And, in the current climate, we bishops have maintained that we are open to dialogue...

In the wake of the selection of Paul Ryan as the VP nominee, you will be hearing a lot about how Ryan is a bad Catholic because the Bishops criticized the Ryan budget plan. Let me cut to the chase, the USCCB was wrong. The text of the letter issued by the Bishops gets the basics wrong and completely ignores the immorality of continued debt. They say... On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, I write to urge you to resist for moral and human reasons unacceptable cuts to hunger and nutrition programs. The committee has been...

Among all the words in a language already so battered and bruised as to almost become unrecognizable, one word stands out for having taken the brunt of the beating. Tolerance. Tolerance has been so misshapen by the abuse that many people think that it means something opposite to its nature. After all injustice the word has suffered, I am unsure if it can or even should survive. Nevertheless, I wish to testify to its true meaning, even if in eulogy. So let us begin with the basics. Contrary to what you may have heard, tolerance of its own can never...

Ooopsies. Maybe filming yourself being a complete jerk to a poor innocent young woman is not the best idea. Adam Smith, the jerk from the video we posted earlier today, has been fired from his job as CFO of Vante. TUCSON, AZ--(Marketwire - Aug 2, 2012) - The following is a statement from Vante: Vante regrets the unfortunate events that transpired yesterday in Tucson between our former CFO/Treasurer Adam Smith and an employee at Chick-fil-A. Effective immediately, Mr. Smith is no longer an employee of our company. The actions of Mr. Smith do not reflect our corporate values in any...

"Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. " There will be many antichrists before the world bears witness to the lawless one. The Church teaches us that " Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on...

I am a father of five children here on Earth. And three more who, with God's mercy, I hope to meet in Heaven someday. I think about those children sometimes (often). It's not something I talk about often (ever?) but I mourn them. You don't know when grief from something like that will hit. Sometimes it's when someone tells me they're shocked that I have five children. I say, "Yes I have five children." And I secretly think of the three. Sometimes it's random moments when the kids are getting into the van and I think of the seats that...