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Pope Francis has named Mgr Leo Cushley as the new Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh. The appointment was announced at noon today in Rome. The archbishop-elect succeeds Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who led the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh from 1985 until his resignation in February. Mgr Cushley is currently head of the English-language section of the Vatican Secretariat of State and has been a close collaborator of both Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. In his capacity as Prelate of the Anticamera, Mgr Cushley has been involved in the visits of heads of state and other important guests...

Former CNN morning show host Soledad O’Brien will be joining Al Jazeera America as a special correspondent, the network announced Monday. O’Brien will contribute short-form segments to Al Jazeera America’s current affairs magazine program “America Tonight,” and her production company Starfish Media Group will produce hour-long documentary specials.

Unless he had just eaten a bad cup of Jell-O pudding, it would appear that actor and comedian Bill Cosby seems to really, really hate Republicans. The veteran entertainer made that very clear Monday morning when he claimed that Republicans not applauding President Obama’s State of the Union address in unison with Democrats was “as bad as the people who were against any kind of desegregation.” He also wondered aloud about whether or not Republicans today are upset that slavery is no longer legal. Cosby made these remarks on the CNN morning show “Starting Point” after soon-to-be-former host Soledad O’Brien referenced...

In yet another classic display of the liberal media, CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien has been caught red-handed using left-wing blog Talking Points memo to counter Virginia House of Delegates member Barbara Comstock on the House GOP budget. As Ali A. Ackbar of Viral Read discovered: Tonight, she was the substitute host for Anderson Cooper, a program that boasts of its reputation for “keeping [politicians] honest.” During her interview with Virginia House of Delegates Republican member Barbara Comstock, O’Brien became visibly flustered and was actually caught doing finger stress exercises as she attempt to insert editorial commentary while her guest, a...

CNN's Soledad O'Brien, who has been pushing the racial angle in the Trayvon Martin case, and who infamously failed to smother President Barack Obama's association with radical Critical Race Theory professor Derrick Bell, has a long history of support for radicalism. To take one little-known, but sensational, example: In April 27, 2008, long after the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was already toxic, and a household name, O’Brien gave a positive review of a radical speech Wright had delivered to the NAACP. O'Brien may have been returning a favor, as Wright had given her and fellow CNN contributor Roland Martin a shout-out...

What's the Matter with Soledad O'Brien? CNN's Soledad O'Brien isn't used to criticism. In the world of media elites, she's a beloved figure and an award-winning news anchor. But last week, she revealed her true, decidedly non-neutral colors. And she's not happy about the hoi polloi questioning her hallowed journalistic objectivity. On Thursday, O'Brien interviewed Joel Pollak, editor-in-chief of the late Andrew Breitbart's online empire. Breitbart's BigGovernment.com released a 1991 video of Barack Obama (then a 30-year-old law student) at a Harvard rally embracing radical racialist Derrick Bell and his push for more aggressive race-based hiring at Harvard. Bell is...

On Thursday, we brought you the story of CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien and her contentious interview over Critical Race Theory. O‘Brien contends the controversial theory isn’t, well, controversial (read the background here). But it appears O‘Brien’s viewers didn’t really agree....

The back-and-forth between CNN’s Soledad O’Brien and Breitbart.com Chief Editor Joel Pollak continued on this morning’s Starting Point, as O’Brien sought to dispel misinformation about the late Professor Derrick Bell and Critical Race Theory, which have been the subject of smears by the Big sites. After a tough interview with O’Brien last week, Pollak’s Big sites went on a vengeful tirade against the CNN anchor, posting a flurry of articles seeking to discredit her, and promoting their warped vision of Prof. Bell. Last week, Breitbart.com released one of the “bombshell” videos that the late Andrew Breitbart promised at this years...

Video. I have never seen a guy so masterfully shred an entire panel of lefties the way Pollak does here. If you're on the Maobama/Bell story it's a must see. Nearly 1,500 comments at the link.

Via Dan Riehl and Ace, this almost too good to check. Go read Rebel Pundit’s post for an explanation, then skip to 2:00 below. (If you missed Ed’s post this morning, by all means watch the whole thing.) After sneering at Joel Pollak for supposedly mischaracterizing the discipline and then refusing to define it herself, she finally demonstrates her grasp of Critical Race Theory by uncorking a definition that’s curiously similar to … the opening of Wikipedia’s intro on CRT, replete with the noncolloquial use of “intersection” to describe an interdisciplinary study. Could be a coincidence — the definition she...

Archbishop Edwin O’Brien of Baltimore has been named by Pope Benedict XVI to become grandmaster of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. The appointment is a surprise, because Archbishop O’Brien has spent less than 4 years as the head of the Baltimore archdiocese, America’s oldest see. In the t past, the post as grandmaster of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre has generally been awarded to a cardinal working at the Vatican who is approaching retirement age. A native of New York, Archbishop O’Brien served as rector of the North American College and as head of the US military ordinariate...

When career criminal Vaughn Matthews decided to snatch a woman's purse and run from a stopped El train last Wednesday, he perhaps thought Lindsay O'Brien - who is nearly three months' pregnant - would be an easy target. But the attempted robbery quickly turned into a street fight, and it was the criminal who ended up on the ground in agony, according to police. O'Brien, 28, was on a westbound train at 63rd and Market Street about 1:30 p.m. when Matthews, 42, punched her in the forehead, grabbed her bag - which contained her laptop - and ran from the...

Exclusive Special Report by Mike Vanderboegh and David Codrea The source reporting Special Agent in Charge of ATF's Tampa Field Division Virginia O'Brien "ran a gun-running investigation that was walking guns to Honduras using the techniques and tactics identical to Fast and Furious" contacted these correspondents again this evening with this follow-up report: O'Brien is in full meltdown. She ordered supervisors from around the Division to report immediately to division offices and to plan on working through the entire weekend on the coverup. Her partner in the bungle was ASAC Scott McCampbell. At one point the case was ready to...

8 April, 2011 Dear friends, Last month I was a guest at the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) in Alabama, taping programs for a series on the paganization of culture. Thank you very much for your prayers for me. The shows will be broadcast on the Women of Grace program, hosted by Johnnette Bencovic, each day this coming week. The general theme of the series is "Occult Fiction: Inroad to the Culture." Both Johnnette and myself, as well as researcher Sue Brinkmann and Fr. Edmund de Silva, comment on various aspects of the spiritual war that is taking place in...

Probation Commissioner John J. O'Brien, whose alleged widespread use of his agency's payroll to reward political patrons has plunged the Probation Department into scandal and left it subject to federal and state criminal investigations, abruptly resigned yesterday. O'Brien, in a statement issued by his attorney, argued that he was "being made a scapegoat'' and denied that he broke any laws. The 53-year-old commissioner was facing almost certain termination at a disciplinary hearing tentatively scheduled for Tuesday. "Commissioner O'Brien's due process rights have been violated and it is inconceivable that, under these circumstances, he will receive a fair hearing,'' the prepared...

Allure of "Twilight" sparks new trend. Teens bite one another to show ...

"Many well-grounded complaints have been made about religious literature on the score that it tends to minimize the importance and dignity of life here and now in favor of life in the next world or miraculous manifestations of grace...The Catholic writer, insofar as he has the mind of the Church, will feel life from the standpoint of the central Christian mystery; that it has, for all its horror, been found by God to be worth dying for" -- Flannery O'Connor. "My dear Loukas, if what you have written happened as described...it will overturn the world" --Theophilos, from the Michael O'Brien...

I've been collecting fragments from the writings and sayings of others for nearly forty years. They have always struck me as pieces of a vast mosaic that is being slowly and painstakingly assembled. As in an actual mural mosaic (Byzantine, complex, more than the sum of its parts), if one stands too close to it the image blurs. Focus on a single component and the part becomes the whole, throwing all into misinterpretation. Stand back, find proportion, locate the range of vision, and the portrait emerges. It is my hope that through the passages quoted here a portrait of humanity...

The astonishing success of the Twilight series of vampire novels written by Stephenie Meyer ranks second only to the Harry Potter series in publishing history, and the two films released to date also repeat this pattern. Meyer’s series builds upon the foundation of older novels and cult films, themselves based on the European legends of vampires. The legends predate even these, for there is a long tradition in ancient religions of supernatural beings who are predators on humans, consuming the blood or flesh of the living, tales that can be found in Babylonian, Greek, Persian, Hindu, and Hebrew lore, as...

Are We Living in Apocalyptic Times? (part 2): Question Period Question: I'm wondering if we don’t get lost, a lot of times, with so many practices in our spiritual life. And what’s really important is our orientation towards God or towards self-indulgence. Have we examined that enough, and heard it enough? Because the basic sin is to put self in the place of God. O’Brien: I agree, the basic problem is one of choice. Are we making a fundamental choice for God or for self? Though there are layers of choosing in our lives, and a multitude of expressions of...