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A misdemeanor trespassing trial for a gay Baptist minister and his partner who refused to leave a city clerk’s office after being denied a marriage license was postponed Monday when attorneys were unable to come up with an impartial jury. Attorneys for Maurice “Bojangles” Blanchard and Dominique James and prosecutors questioned prospective jurors Aug. 6 in Jefferson County District Court in Louisville, Ky. After people were eliminated for various reasons, not enough remained in the jury pool for the trial to proceed. The trial was rescheduled for Nov. 25. Blanchard and James tried to apply for a marriage license in...

During a past ministry trip to Hungary, I heard a painfully familiar story. Through a translator, a tearful young woman living near Budapest explained that her Christian husband was angrily demanding her absolute submission. This included, among other things, that she clean their house according to his strict standards and that she engage in sexual acts with him that made her feel uncomfortable and dirty. This lady was not demanding her rights or trying to be disrespectful. She was a godly, humble woman who obviously wanted to please the Lord. But she had been beaten to a pulp emotionally, and...

Former CRS head Bishop Lynch says pro-lifers ‘attack’ Catholic agencies as ‘money raising scheme’ BY PATRICK B. CRAINE Thu Aug 08, 2013 14:43 EST ST. PETERSBURG, Florida, August 8, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A bishop who formerly headed Catholic Relief Services has issued a vigorous defense of the relief agency while at the same time accusing its pro-life critics of “attacking” CRS as a “money raising scheme.” Bishop Robert Lynch of St. Petersburg, Florida, who served as chairman of CRS’ board of trustees from 2001 to 2007, made the charge in a Wednesday post on his personal blog that was co-published...

via YouTube A traffic accident and subsequent rescue mission in Missouri is getting international attention this week, not because the emergency crew was successful in saving a woman's life -- but because a mysterious priest allegedly appeared seemingly out of nowhere to calmly offer a prayer. And then he disappeared. The New London Fire Department is calling it the "Highway 19 Miracle." The case of this "mysterious priest" is already going viral, with USA Today referencing the appearance of an "angel" and the Daily Mail referring to the "riddle of the angel priest." "God's Country?" says the New York...

Why did God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? Was the most extensive judgment found anywhere in the Bible outside of the book of Revelation actually for the sin of inhospitality, not homosexuality?People find what they want in the Bible. If one looks hard enough, he can find "biblical" support for reincarnation, Eastern religions, Jesus as a guru, divorce for any reason, and flying saucers. Every cult of Christianity uses the Bible to validate its claims and so does some of the occult.It's not surprising, then, that a recent trend in biblical scholarship holds that a careful reading of Genesis in...

Pope Francis visits with Vatican workers on August 9, 2013. Credit: L'Osservatore Romano. Rome, Italy, Aug 9, 2013 / 09:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- This summer the Vatican is finding out what it’s like to have a Pope in residence during the hottest weeks of the year, which for Francis seems to include visiting workers and planning for the fall. On Aug. 9, Pope Francis paid a surprise visit to the area of Vatican City known as the industrial area. For the small city-state that involves a power plant, carpentry shop, warehouse, metal working shop, and the offices of the newspaper...

Youtube comment - "Merci Cure of Ars Saint John Marie Vianney, feast Day 8/4. Deo Gratias." Paraphrasing: The diocese of the city of Missouri has not located the priest involved, and out of repect for any priest who may have been involved who does not wish to come forward, the diocese has decided it will not investigate this incident. The diocese would like to say it's grateful that a priest was able to excercise his ministry in this manner and requests prayers for the healing of the victim and prayers of thanks.

In a kind of follow up from yesterday’s blog on the call to repentance, it seems it might be helpful to list what the Bible describes as some of the more serious sins.One of the great deceptions of our time is that serious sin is a remote possibility for most people, and that it is only committed by very wicked people. And too many people assess their moral standing with unhelpful slogans such as “I’m basically a good person,� or “I haven’t murdered anybody.�We have to be more serious and mature in our discernment than this. Of course God does...

Switzerland announced a national competition this week that will search for a new national anthem to replace its current one, which government officials say has too many references to God and is too old-fashioned. "The real problem is above all the text," said Lukas Niederberger, who is part of the Swiss Society for Public Utility (SGG), the completion organizer in charge of looking for a new anthem. "Officially the anthem is a psalm, a prayer, but of course we have an open society, religiously neutral. We have atheists, no single god, so this anthem is a difficulty," he told BBC...

Pray For Our American Heroes and Our Nation VJ Day in Times Square (August 14, 1945) When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you. When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army. He shall say: “Hear, Israel: Today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not panic or be...

Featured Term (selected at random):SHROVETIDEThe few days before Ash Wednesday, particularly the day before, Shrove Tuesday. It is associated with confessing one's sins and has in many places become a time for holding carnivals, as the last time for festivity before the Lenten season of penance. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

They work with the poorest of the poor. They've seen the effects of drugs, murder, violence, bombings and more in poverty-stricken communities in the U.S., England, Ireland, Nicaragua, and Honduras. They've experienced tough kids like those in the New York's infamous South Bronx.  But the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal had never encountered a hardness of heart like they found in the notroriously crime-ridden neighborhood of Moyross.  How do you reach out to those who are considered unreachable? Find out when EWTN airs "The Monks of Moyross," at 9 p.m. ET, Sunday, Aug. 11, with an encore 3 a.m., Monday,...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Children In The Bible Joseph(Genesis 37-50) Jacob’s Journey to Egypt 1. So Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac. 2. Then God spoke to Israel in the visions of the night, and said, “Jacob, Jacob!” And he said, “Here I am.” 3. So He said, “I am God, the God of your father; do not fear to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. 4. I will go down with...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The last formal exhortation to the 115 cardinals who elected Pope Francis in March included reminders of the importance of presenting the Catholic faith in its entirety, the need to recognize the errors of church members and the need for unity within the Catholic community. Maltese Cardinal Prosper Grech, 87, was too old to vote in the conclave, but the 115 cardinals under age 80 asked him to enter the Sistine Chapel with them March 12 and offer a meditation before they began voting. The text of the cardinal's remarks was not released at the...

Again and again we see liberals and the MSM (virtually all liberal) cherry-pick a quote of Pope Francis and then run with it as if, by itself, it actually means something profoundly in harmony with their liberal agenda.I saw this on the blog of Syte Reitz. She vivisects the choice by the editors of the Wisconsin State Journal to post an editorial cartoon which aims to pit Bishop Robert Morlino (of Madison) against Pope Francis.Context: on 1 August Bp. Morlino observed his 10th anniversary of being appointed as Bishop of Madison and there were articles in the paper about him.The...

ALTOONA, WI, August 8, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Catholic parish in Wisconsin has told the Boy Scout troop it has sponsored for the last 20 years that it will have to find a new home in response to the troop’s decision to allow practicing homosexuals to join. The Boy Scouts of America voted in May to overturn its longstanding policy barring openly gay scouts, and instead allowed troops to include gay scouts if they choose. Boy Scout Troop 90, which meets at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Altoona, revised its membership policy to state that no boy could be denied...

Pinned inside her mangled Mercedes, seriously injured and fading fast, Katie Lentz turned to her rescuers on the lonely open stretch of Missouri highway and asked them to pray. Struck head-on by a drunk driver on Sunday morning, emergency workers had been battling for an hour and a half to free Lentz, but to no avail. But as they joined hands a Catholic priest appeared, even though there were no bystanders and the road was blocked, who offered a prayer and an instruction to the rescuers that they would now be able to free her. Suddenly, heavy equipment needed to...

  Jesus: Prophet, Priest, and King At your baptism you were marked with oil as a sign that you are consecrated to God and anointed by the Holy Spirit. Your anointing also was a sign that you are joined to Christ and share in his threefold mission as prophet, priest, and king. The Israelites anointed their priests and kings with oil. They spoke of their prophets as being anointed with the spirit. Jesus, known as the Christ, the anointed one, fills all three roles. According to Luke, at the outset of his public ministry, Jesus read from Isaiah and...

August 9, 2013 Friday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time    Reading 1 Dt 4:32-40 Moses said to the people:“Ask now of the days of old, before your time,ever since God created man upon the earth;ask from one end of the sky to the other:Did anything so great ever happen before?Was it ever heard of? Did a people ever hear the voice of Godspeaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himselffrom the midst of another nation,by testings, by signs and wonders, by war,with his...

Tens of thousands of people complained about a Facebook page that promotes the notion that the Virgin Mary should have had an abortion. Titled “Virgin Mary Should’ve Aborted,” the administrator of the page claims to “explain what really happened in the biblical times, since the bible is full of lies.” After a massive campaign to contact Facebook and a corresponding hashtag campaign on Twitter, it appears the page has been taken down. “Virgin Mary Should’ve Aborted,” which had at its peak about 6,800 likes, was taken down Wednesday, likely in response to complaints from Christian activists. The effort against the...

Your Days Are Ordained Today's Scripture “...All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:16, NIV) Today's Word from Joel and Victoria God has already planned out every detail of your life right down to the very second. Think about our solar system, the way it rotates. Scientists tell us that every year it’s exactly on time down to the millisecond, day after day, year after year. Hundreds of years from now if the Lord tarries, it will still be precise. That’s because our God is not an...

Prayer in the Father’s Hearing "Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, ’Father, I thank You that You have heard Me’" —John 11:41 When the Son of God prays, He is mindful and consciously aware of only His Father. God always hears the prayers of His Son, and if the Son of God has been formed in me (see Galatians 4:19) the Father will always hear my prayers. But I must see to it that the Son of God is exhibited in my human flesh. “. . . your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit . ....

At the request of the pope, Catholics used to pray after Mass for the conversion of Russia–or so we have often heard. This custom has long since been discontinued. Whenever it comes to my mind, however, I wonder if it should be revived in a new form. Should Catholics today pray after Mass for the conversion of America? Or, if the Holy Father (for understandable reasons) would not want to single out the United States in this way, could the Bishops of the United States at least encourage their flocks to pray after Mass for the conversion of their country?...

On August 6th, Andrea Tornielli of "Vatican Insider" published an interview with Fr. Alessandro Apollonio, the Procurator General of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, in which they discussed the Holy See's recent decision to restrict the order's use of the so-called "Extraordinary Form." The decree issued by the Congregation for Religious, with the approval of Pope Francis, reads in part: "The Holy Father Francis has directed that every religious of the congregation of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate is required to celebrate the liturgy according to the ordinary rite and that, if the occasion should arise, the use...

Pope Francis waves after leading the Angelus from the window of his studio overlooking St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Aug. 4. (CNS photo/Stefano Rellandini, Reuters) (Aug. 5, 2013) By Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When Pope Francis spoke to journalists about the need for a stronger Catholic pastoral approach to marriage and to divorced people, he made a parenthetical reference to how the Orthodox churches handle the breakup of marriages differently. “The Orthodox have a different practice,� he told reporters July 28 during his flight back to Rome from Rio de Janeiro. The Orthodox “follow...

Too many Catholics are uncomfortable using the biblical and traditional words, “Repent,� convert and conversion. To repent means to change your mind and come to a new way of living. To convert means to turn from sinful ways or erroneous teaching.But too many Catholics, including priests are uncomfortable using words like this. We used to speak of convert classes etc. But now many prefer abstract descriptions like, “Inquiry Classes� or the even more abstract “RCIA�Many draw back lest they seem to suggest that others are wrong, “going wrong,� need to change, or, heaven forfend, “sinful.� Words like repent and convert...

The Episcopal Priest, Rev. Gary R. Hall, is the Dean of the Washington National Cathedral. I expected him to be liberal as he has been outspoken concerning his support of gay marriage and gun control. I mean, hey, he's an Episcopalian, whaddya' expect? But I was truly surprised by something in Sally Quinn's profile of Rev. Hall at On Faith. Check it out: I don’t want to be loosey-goosey about it,� he says, “but I describe myself as a non-theistic Christian.� And he goes on to expand on the concept. “Jesus doesn’t use the word God very much,� he says....

The Old Testament answers some of the greatest questions of all time—where did we come from? Why do we desire the good yet do evil? Why do our souls yearn for eternity while our bodies yield to death and decay?Yet, the Hebrew Scriptures leave so many other tantalizing questions unanswered. These mysteries have nagged at the Christian imagination for centuries, inspired epic quests, and stumped some of the greatest minds of the Church.Here are six of the greatest mysteries of the Old Testament. (Note to readers: the focus is on historical questions, not scientific issues, such as the six days...

A female CofE vicar yesterday insisted she has not sinned against God by putting an obscene bumper sticker reading 'WTFWJD' on the back of her car. The Reverend Alice Goodman stuck the sticker, standing for ‘What The F*** Would Jesus Do?', on the back of her red Subaru Legacy - sparking outrage from members of her parish. But the Reverend insists the sticker is harmless and even the former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams was happy to accept a lift in her car in the past. The sign - a play on the Christian motto ‘What Would Jesus Do?’...

Romania is in the middle of a church-building boom, with some 10 new places of worship completed every month, and one vast cathedral slowly taking shape. But some Romanians take issue with the expense, in one of Europe's poorest countries - and particularly the use of funds from the public purse. The church is restored, while a statue of Lenin is trampled underfoot (Mogosoaia Palace, 2009) To travel across the north of Romania from Suceava in Moldavia to Maramures is to be bamboozled by exquisite religious eye candy. Everywhere you look there are churches - big, small, medieval, brand new,...

Pinned inside her mangled Mercedes, seriously injured and fading fast, Katie Lentz turned to her rescuers on the lonely open stretch of Missouri highway and asked them to pray. Struck head-on by a drunk driver on Sunday morning, emergency workers had been battling for an hour and a half to free Lentz, but to no avail. But as they joined hands a Catholic priest appeared, even though there were no bystanders and the road was blocked, who offered a prayer and an instruction to the rescuers that they would now be able to free her. Suddenly, heavy equipment needed to...

Jewish tradition emphasizes that the month of Elul is a special time of Divine good will and mercy – a time that is particularly conducive to prayer and repentance. Actually, the month is part of the preparatory process for entering into the awesome judgment of Rosh Hashana and the cleansing power of the Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. God makes Himself especially close at hand. >>SNIP<< A popular rabbinic teaching describes the reality of the Elul encounter as “the king is in the field.” The analogy is to a great king who pays a surprise visit to his subjects...

A psychologist who advised the Catholic Church committee that deals with sexual abuse says the church's insurance company dictated how victims should be treated under the Towards Healing protocol. [SNIP] ...he was disturbed by how much influence Catholic Church Insurance had in formulating the church's protocol. "When I came into the process somewhere in 1996/97, CCI was at every meeting," he said. "They either had one or two of their senior representatives, and/or a lawyer at each of the meetings I attended. "They would object to any language that was used in the Towards Healing document that would put the...

Featured Term (selected at random):SACRISTYA room attached to a church, usually near the altar, where the clergy vest for ecclesiastical functions. The sacristy affords storage for sacred vessels, vestments, and other articles needed for liturgical use. The sacrarium is usually located there. (Etym. Latin sacristia, from sacrum, holy, sacred.) See Also: PISCINA All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Children In The Bible Joseph(Genesis 37-50) Joseph Revealed to His Brothers 1. Then Joseph could not restrain himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Make everyone go out from me!” So no one stood with him while Joseph made himself known to his brothers. 2. And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard it. 3. Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph; does my father still live?” But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed in his presence....

Plans by three Catholic hospital systems in Wisconsin to deny admitting privileges to doctors who perform abortions would "be in active violation of federal law," Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen's Department of Justice said in a court filing last week. Federal law "provides that hospitals accepting federal funds may not discriminate against a physician because that physician has participated in or refused to participate in abortions," the state Justice Department said in its filing in federal court. According to experts on federal law, if doctors can prove they were not granted privileges specifically because they perform the procedure, the...

August 8, 2013 Memorial of Saint Dominic, Priest    Reading 1 Nm 20:1-13 The whole congregation of the children of Israelarrived in the desert of Zin in the first month, and the people settled at Kadesh.It was here that Miriam died, and here that she was buried. As the community had no water,they held a council against Moses and Aaron. The people contended with Moses, exclaiming,“Would that we too had perished with our kinsmen in the LORD’s presence!Why have you brought the LORD’s assembly into this desertwhere we and our livestock are dying?Why did you lead us out of Egypt,only...

Uncovering Israel’s Past Posted By Christopher S. Carson On August 6, 2013 @ 12:12 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 34 Comments It seems that many educated liberals who wish Israel didn’t exist are turning to archaeologists to succor their agendas. These archaeologists are called biblical “minimalists,” and loosely affiliate themselves with the “Copenhagen School” of archaeology. They believe that the scientific evidence in the dirt is irrefutable—there was no Moses, there was no Exodus, there was no period of the “Judges,” there was not a Conquest of Caanan by Joshua or anyone else, and there was no glorious “United Monarchy”...

He Orders Your Steps Today's Scripture “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, and He delights in his way.” (Psalm 37:23, NKJV) Today's Word from Joel and Victoria I had a man tell me a few weeks ago that he was really hoping to get this big contract. He worked in heavy equipment sales. He went to meet the owner of this very large company. He walked into the meeting very nervous, very uptight. The owner smiled and said, “My wife said to tell you hello. You both went to high school together. She said...

Prayer in the Father’s Honor ". . . that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God" —Luke 1:35 If the Son of God has been born into my human flesh, then am I allowing His holy innocence, simplicity, and oneness with the Father the opportunity to exhibit itself in me? What was true of the Virgin Mary in the history of the Son of God’s birth on earth is true of every saint. God’s Son is born into me through the direct act of God; then I as His child must exercise...

In our time, people of faith, acting on their consciences shaped by the Judeo-Christian tradition are being accused of hate. "Hate" has got to be the most overused word of our time. If someone is politically incorrect in their views, they are often falsely accused of hate. According to Webster's, hate means "To feel great hostility or animosity toward." Some atheists took offense recently to a military chaplain's quoting of the old saying, popularized by Dwight Eisenhower, "In battle, they learned the great truth that there are no atheists in the foxholes." Some atheists in the military have taken issue...

From National Catholic Reporter: Pope Francis has not mentioned traditional hot-button Catholic issues like abortion because he prefers to emphasize that Catholics “love people� and are not “mean or old-fashioned,� Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley has said.O’Malley, the only North American Francis asked to serve on a group of eight cardinals advising him on reforming the church, made the comments during a keynote address Tuesday in San Antonio at the annual convention of the Knights of Columbus.“Some people think that the Holy Father should talk more about abortion,� O’Malley told approximately 2,000 attendees, according to a copy of the remarks posted...

CENTER, MO. -- Rescue workers want to thank a higher power for coming to the rescue early Sunday morning. Emergency crews spent an hour and a half trying to extricate a 19-year-old Quincy woman trapped in her in crushed car on Missouri 19 near Center, Mo. The Missouri Highway Patrol said Aaron Smith, 26, crossed the center line and struck Katie Lentz head-on. Now, friends, family and those who rescued Lentz would love to find and thank a mysterious priest who they say helped make the rescue possible. New London Fire Chief Raymond Reed said rescue crews spent the first...

Moscow, August 7, Interfax – Delays in the process of suppressing terrorists in Syria can result in setting up an Islamic caliphate in the country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov believes. "Earlier, we saw how some members of the Security Council didn’t want to condemn terrorist acts in Syria, saying, that, no matter how cynical it may sound, those who carry out these acts struggle against the regimen, which exhausted itself. This position is absolutely unacceptable, terrorism should be treated without any double standards," he said at a press conference summing up his talks with Ghana Foreign Minister Hannah Tetteh....

(RNS) For more than three decades, the Vatican of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI operated on a version of the conservative maxim, “No enemies to the right.” While left-wing theologians were silenced and liberal-to-moderate bishops were shunted aside in favor of hard-liners, liturgical traditionalists and cultural conservatives were diligently courted and given direct access to the apostolic palace. But in a few short months, Pope Francis has upended that dynamic, alienating many on the Catholic right by refusing to play favorites and ignoring their preferred agenda items even as he stressed the kind of social justice issues that...

LOWELL — Last November, police watched a driver cruise through a neighborhood for some 20 minutes, passing a prostitute several times to get her attention. When officers pulled the man over, he initially said he was “just driving around,” according to a police report. But when police pressed him and suggested he was not being truthful, the man told officers he “wanted to just go home,” the report stated. On Sunday afternoon, police had another encounter with Monsignor Arthur M. Coyle, a high-ranking official with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, this time arresting him and accusing him of soliciting...

Featured Term (selected at random):PATRON SAINTA saint or blessed who, since early Christian times, has been chosen as a special intercessor with God for a for a particular person, place, community, or organization. The custom arose from the biblical fact that a change of personal name indicated a change in the person, e.g., Abram, to Abraham, Simon to Peter, Saul to Paul; and from the practice of having churches built over the tombs of martyrs. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

The Bible is a book of bad news and good news. First the bad news: Human beings are sinners. Our sin separates us from a holy and righteous God, provokes his wrath, and causes us to ultimately suffer death and eternal separation from Him. (Rom. 3:23, Rom.1:18, Col.3:6). More bad news: We are without excuse. As a result of our wickedness, we have suppressed the truth about God made known to us and are deserving of his righteous wrath. (Rom. 1:16-32) That's a bitter pill to swallow, but it's not the end of the story. There is good news. The...