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December 2, 2015

Note from the Managing Editor:

As I do every year, I'm asking our subscribers to support us with a donation during Advent.  Please go here to donate.  (You will receive a tax receipt if you live in either the U.S. or Canada)

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The Catholic Education Resource Center offers unparalleled coverage of the cultural and educational challenges and opportunities facing the contemporary Church.  I count on your weekly emails, and I'm grateful for all that you do to help me diagnose the signs of the times.

Please help us with your Advent donation by going here.  God bless you. - J. Fraser Field



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"This is perhaps among the most baffling paradoxes for a narrowly scientific mentality: in order to progress towards the future we need the past, we need profound roots." - Pope Francis



New Resources


 
The Compassion That Cures - Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta - from One Heart Full of Love

In Haiti just as in England, Spain, Italy, or India — there are unhappy people everywhere.


 
The Coming of Advent - Father Gerald E. Murray - The Catholic Thing

The awesome reality of the Incarnation calls for our full attention.


 
"The Church has no authority...": On the Limits of the Pope - Adam A. J. DeVille - Catholic World Report

Papal authority cannot be used to promote favored papal causes, no matter how noble. It is to be used to keep the Church one and focused on the one true God.


 
Teaching Media Literacy and Combating Pornography - Thomas Lickona - excellence & ethics

Clearly, if we're serious about media literacy and young people's character development, we can't turn a blind eye to pornography.


 
A Year Later - Hadley Arkes - The Catholic Thing

We've just had the anniversary of her death.


 
Downton may not 'do God' but it certainly does anti-Catholicism - Father Alexander Lucie-Smith - Catholic Herald

Downton is accurate in at least one regard in that it gives us a taster of anti-Catholic prejudice.


 
The principle of natural consequences - J. Budziszewski - excerpt from What We Can't Not Know: A Guide

There are natural penalties for breaking natural law.


 
Moral memory and the Church - Father George W. Rutler - From the Pastor

The Church has a long memory.  One might well say that she "is" memory.


 
1st Sunday of Advent - Father John Horgan - CERC

Advent is not just about the natiivity. It's about all the ways the Lord comes to us every day.

Editorials of Interest:

Conscience and Objectivity - The Catholic Thing
France's Catholic Revolution - Catholic World Report
Hard Sayings about Terror - The Catholic Thing

Editorials of Interest


The end of Christianity in the Middle East - Mercatornet

The toppling of secular regimes has crushed religious freedom.


Choose to Be Grateful. It Will Make You Happier. - NY Times

It is best to be emotionally authentic, right? Wrong. Building the best life does not require fealty to feelings in the name of authenticity, but rather rebelling against negative impulses and acting right even when we don't feel like it.


Conscience and Objectivity - The Catholic Thing

The goodness of conscience is ultimately judged by the applications made.


France's Catholic Revolution - Catholic World Report

Neocatholiques want to debate and critique reigning secular orthodoxies. They are, as Le Figaro put it, "afraid of nothing."


Introducing Atheists to God - Aleteia

We might talk about God in human images like "Father," "King" or "Creator," but at the foundation we refer to God as "Ipsum Esse Subsistens" or "the One Who Is Being Itself." What God Is and that God Is are identical.


Mary Always Present in the Church - Vultus Christi

The Son of Man will find faith on earth when He comes, and He will find it in the maternal and sorrowful Heart of His Mother, because she will remain faithful in the heart of the Church, even when all should fall away.


Secular Slums and the Francis Option - Zenit

Pope Francis' approach to carrying God's mercy to our post-Christian culture maintains a dual focus on outward mission and an inward strengthening of local communities.


The Deeper Meaning of Black Friday - The Atlantic

Christmas is about a particularly excessive gift — an ultimate gift, the gift of God's only son, whom the scriptures declare would sacrifice his life for all mankind. Excess is the origin story of Christmas, rendering Black Friday strangely compatible with the liturgy.


The World Doesn't Need Tinker Bell Catholicism - National Catholic Register

Do you remember that episode in Peter Pan when Tinker Bell is about to perish and all the children in the audience are asked to clap their hands if they believe in fairies?


Over 200 consecrated hosts stolen, desecrated in Spain art exhibit - CNA

Spanish artist Abel Azcona stole more than 240 consecrated hosts by pretending to receive Holy Communion at Mass. He then placed the hosts on the ground to form the word "Pederasty" in Spanish.


Pornography: Our Greatest Ongoing Spiritual Threat - The Catholic Thing

It is a good sign that the Church in the United States is wrestling with this deadly product that kills souls by the millions here and abroad.


The Off-the-Cuff and Out-of-Focus Papacy - Catholic World Report

Since chastising orthodox bishops at the conclusion of the Synod, Pope Francis has often resorted to scoldings, ambiguities, and mixed messages.


Hard Sayings about Terror - The Catholic Thing

We should be clear about one thing: the terrorists are cold-blooded murderers and their apocalyptic violence has very little to do with Western actions and a whole lot to do with perverse currents in Islam.


Middle-East Scholar: Islam Needs a Renewal of Reason - NC Register

Jesuit Father Samir Khalil Samir says the Muslim religion was much more rational in the Middle Ages than it is today.


Parisian Who Lost Wife in Bataclan Attack Has Personal Approach for Defeating ISIS - Aleteia

"It was important that if I was going to die, if the next bullet was for me, then I left saying I love you. So I said it to every single person I've ever loved (imagining them before me). And in that way it felt okay to die, because I had love in my heart."


Welcome to Canada: Syrian refugees arrive in Calgary to tearful family, smiling, sign-toting strangers - National Post

The three Syrian families, who landed in Calgary on Monday after risking their lives to seek refuge, all have family here and came to Canada under the sponsorship of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Calgary, in partnership with the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society.


You won't win a war against ISIS if you don't know what the peace looks like - The Guardian

Without a strategy for peace, we will continue forever on this deathly merry-go-round. You can't destroy a violent theology with greater violence — you just up the stakes and feed the beast.


Spotlight Reveals Sexual Abuse, But Misrepresents a Good Man - Aleteia

In the digital age, character assassinations can be perceived as truth. This brief article hopes to stay that result, visited upon someone who appears as a character in the film Spotlight, about the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, and how it was uncovered by staffers at the Boston Globe.


10 Handmade Christmas Gifts From Monks and Nuns - Aleteia

Offering fudge, soaps, candy, mustards and more, Catholic religious make online shopping easy and charitable.


How a Catholic Saved the Pilgrims at Thanksgiving - YouTube

Did you know that Thanksgiving may not have happened if a group a Franciscan monks had not rescued Squanto, the Native American who led the effort to help the starving Pilgrims, from the slave trade?


Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman and
St. Justin Martyr, pray for us

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