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Editor's note: this piece was coauthored by Hagelin's daughter, Kristin Carey.We’ve all felt that bittersweet longing for familiar places and people. Our experience of homesickness increases with age. The more places you visit and come to love, the less “at home” you feel in any one place. And the more people you come to cherish, the more often you miss someone. Perhaps those who can identify most with the term “homesickness” are those who have lost loved ones. It’s more than a simple miss; an undeniable void is created at the departure of a loved one. Your world—your home—is altered...

Pope Francis on the family: an inestimable and irreplaceable good 2013-10-27 Vatican Radio(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis celebrated Mass in St Peter's Square on Sunday, October 27th, 2013, to mark the 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time and the World Family Day at the close of the 21st Plenary Assembly of the Pontifical Council for the Family, which met in Rome this past week to reflect on the theme of living the joy of the Faith. In his homily, the Holy Father spoke of the Christian family as an institution that prays, keeps faith, and experiences joy. Listen: Over 100 thousand people...

I can't subject myself to the articles about Pope Francis demotion and exile of Cardinal Burke posted by long suffering Catholic journalists who have been luring our children into adultery and sexual debauchery, but I have been reading the headlines. I have also been fielding questions from readers who tell me stories about how their relatives and loved ones have put adultery on full throttle, citing the counterfeit deposit of faith Pope Francis has generated with his...I am groping for charity here...statements and actions contrary to Church teaching and obfuscation of teaching. These journalists have been permitted to use the...

He's a city cop by day - but by night, Detective Jack Mook is working on his toughest case yet. Mook, a Gulf War veteran who also teaches boxing to Pittsburgh-area kids, fostered two of his young students after learning they were living in abusive conditions with a foster family. And now after two years, Mook and the boys, 11-year-old Jessee and his 15-year-old brother Josh, have finally become a legal family - after Mook adopted them in September. It means the bachelor, 45, is now adapting to a new routine of homework and healthy meals.

Breaking: Pope to host international conference on complementarity of man and woman By Joshua Mercer Big news, just announced by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:Rome, November 3rd, 2014.On November 17-19, 2014, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith will host a colloquium in Vatican City, in cooperation with the Pontifical Council for the Family, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, on the subject of the Complementarity of Man and Woman in Marriage. It is a global, interreligious meeting featuring representatives from 14 religious traditions and 23 countries. The colloquium will...

The standard portrayals of economic life for ordinary Americans and their families paint a bleak picture of stagnancy, rising economic inequality, joblessness, and low levels of economic mobility. From President Barack Obama’s speech last year at the Center for American Progress to Fed chairman Janet Yellen’s address this month in Boston, we’re getting the picture that the American Dream looks to be in bad shape. These portrayals contain an important germ of truth — today’s economy isn’t doing ordinary Americans many favors — but what is largely missing from the public conversation about economics in America is an honest...

The state’s highest court has toppled a cultural taboo — legalizing a degree of incest, at least between an uncle and niece — in a unanimous ruling. While the laws against “parent-child and brother-sister marriages . . . are grounded in the almost universal horror with which such marriages are viewed . . . there is no comparably strong objection to uncle-niece marriages,” Tuesday’s ruling reads.

In September, Travis Childers, Mississippi's Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, completed a survey about immigration. Childers' stance has consistently been anti-immigration, so his opposing amnesty for "dreamers," young people whose parents brought them into this country without authorization when they were too young to object, is no surprise. #What angers Democrats is the questionnaire's source: The Federation for American Immigration Reform, known as FAIR. The questions are: 1. Will you oppose or support legislation that would grant any form of work authorization to illegal aliens? 2. Will you oppose or support legislation that would increase the overall number of...

My mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer in the mid-1970s, when I was in grammar school. Her goal, at that time, was to stay alive to see my older sister Kathy and me graduate from high school. She neither dwelled on the disease, nor on why she was stricken with it, but instead focused on getting rid of the cancer and living for her two daughters. She watched both us of graduate from high school, from college and, in my case, from graduate school. In 2005, she was once again diagnosed with cancer. After enduring surgery and chemotherapy, her body...

This week there appeared a story about an interview that actress Jennifer Lawrence gave to Vanity Fair in the wake of having explicit photos of herself hacked and shared on the internet. The story included this excerpt: “I was in a loving, healthy, great relationship for four years. It was long distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or he’s going to look at you” (emphasis added). When I read that last line, something inside me grieved. My heart broke for Jennifer Lawrence, for our society, and for my five daughters. What have we become when...

The second reason the current Synod on the Family will inevitably seem chaotic is the unique situation of the Church in this period of history. In my last installment, I explained that a certain degree of chaos is integral to the synodal process, and in the third and final installment I will explain why the very concept of marriage produces a chaotic response in the modern world. But today let us consider how the Church’s unusual situation leaves the synod fathers fumbling around for solutions they cannot quite grasp. The reason lies in the rather odd condition of the Church...

A chaotic synod? Reason one: The nature of synods By Dr. Jeff Mirus | Oct 10, 2014 It is very difficult to assess what is in the minds of most bishops as they work behind the scenes at the current Synod on the Family. The reports of the proceedings are very scanty, and often couched in terms that can be interpreted in multiple ways. A perceived lack of direction may be more apparent than real, of course, but there are three very good reasons why it is likely to be more real than apparent: (1) The nature of large...

Today, Jennifer Lawrence’s exclusive cover story with Vanity Fair hits the stands. The popular Hunger Games’ star speaks openly about the internet scandal involving the stolen nude photos of her. She calls it a “sex crime,” and says that anyone who purposely looked at the photos of her is guilty. Lawrence is right that, just because someone is a public figure, it doesn’t give the general public – or anyone in particular – a right to view stolen photos of them. But Lawrence also got it deeply wrong. In explaining why the nude photos were taken of her in the...

<p>Re: Today's SCOTUS rollover for the sodomites and the inevitable RINO push to surrender that's guaranteed to follow.</p> <p>Free Republic is here to defend our Constitution and fight for the founding principles and our God-given Liberty. I'll be damned if I'm going to roll over for the homosexual agenda or the Marxist/fascist ruling class!!</p>

In July, I received the following email, asking for help: Donny, I just read your story about Mindy. I thank you for sharing that. I decided to contact you and see what advice you may have for me, a married father of four beautiful young children, and addict of pornography. In the past I have cheated on my wife and it sickens me. Porn has been something that I can't break.... Every time it just draws me back in. I have tried professional counseling and found that it was a waste of time. I look at my wife and daughters...

Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri reminded reporters that the Synod of Bishops is meeting to discuss the family—not just the question of divorce—during a briefing on October 3. Cardinal Baldisseri, the secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, said that the question of pastoral care for the family is “a particularly urgent topic” today, at “a historical moment of change.” He remarked that the Synod’s discussion is oriented particularly toward the family in the context of evangelization, noting that Pope Francis has called for “a Church that is increasingly open and missionary.” The cardinal briefed reporters thoroughly on the details of the Synod....

A group of 48 theologians, psychologists, social workers, counselors, lawyers, and other experts have written an open letter urging the pope and bishops about to attend the Vatican’s Extraordinary Synod on the Family to defend the family and the sanctity of life against secularist attacks. Rampant divorce, contraception, unmarried cohabitation, and pornography, with an ever-shrinking knowledge of the moral law among ordinary people, are the issues most pressing against the institution of marriage, the scholars argue. They have asked the pope to encourage parishes to work to “restore legal provisions that protect marriage as a conjugal union of one man...

At the height of the counterculture of the late 1960s and the flower-power desire for peace, Pope Paul VI said "If you want peace, work for justice." It remains a popular bumper sticker even today. And the Church does a tremendous job working for justice: feeding the hungry, providing clothing, offering shelter and healing, ministering to prisoners, caring for AIDS patients, promoting peace, offering counsel, providing education, condemning consumerism, preserving the environment, and so forth. This work often draws praise from those who are otherwise critical, those who might ask: "Why can’t the Church stick to issues of social justice?...

"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church" (Eph. 5:25). The problem is most of us can’t just flip a switch and love our wives "as Christ loved the Church," even if—especially if—we understand the true meaning and depth of Paul’s words. Nonetheless, we realize that the apostle to the Gentiles is trying to give us a blueprint for success as husbands and fathers. The key for us as Christian men is to realize that implementing Paul’s instruction requires training and hard work. We need to build virtues, which not only are godly habits, but spiritual muscles that...

In a speech stressing the importance of protecting America's religious liberties and other inalienable rights that so-called "radical" Democratic policies are trying to limit, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, reflected on his own family's path toward the Christian faith, which included his father abandoning him and his mother when he was three years old before returning to them after finding Jesus. Before Rev. Rafael Cruz became an evangelical Texas pastor and one of the nation's most notable and quotable congressional parents, he and his wife, with their toddler son, lived in Canada and worked in the oil and energy business....