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November 11, 2020

Note from the Assistant Managing Editor:

This week's reflection from Fr. Walter Ciszek is helpful for everyone watching the fate of the US election.  "What was I, in comparison to the millions of atheists in the Soviet Union?  What was I, in comparison to the might and power of the Soviet Government?  What were any of us, really, in the face of the system around us, with all its organs of propaganda and powers of persecution?  Yet, in God's providence, here we were."  See "For God all things are possible."

"Who Lost the Culture?" Fr. Jerry Pokorsky posits that our cultural decline began with the dropping of the atomic bomb.  Fulton Sheen held this view: "The dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima blotted out boundaries.  There was no longer a boundary between the military and the civilian, between the helper and the helped ... So we broke down boundaries and limits" and from that time on embraced radical autonomy, which has led to all our cultural ills.

I love Fr. Paul Scalia's columns.  "Every vice is the distortion of a virtue.  So the great tragedy of the Pharisees was not their devotion to the Law but the distortion of that devotion.  'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.' (Mt 23:23)"

Deacon Raffaele Salvino's vocation story is just the witness of hope we need right now.  After encountering the peace and love of God in Eucharistic Adoration, his life was changed: "Twenty years of relentless and meticulous planning for the future shattered before me as I was now alone and face-to-face with the Source of all fulfillment.  I experienced not only a deep peace about whatever God's plan for my future would be, but a sudden burst of joy.  God loved me, what else mattered?"

We end as always with the inimitable Fr. Rutler.  "I am confident that this election, because the issues it is engaging are of the highest portent for our moral order, will have results that transcend the consequences of customary politics."

In prayer and fasting. - Meaghen Gonzalez



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"No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life." - Albert Einstein



New Resources


 
"For God all things are possible" - Father Walter Ciszek, S.J. - from He Leadeth Me

The Kingdom of God is within you, Christ told us.


 
Looking into the Future Through His Eyes: John Paul II, the Catholic Church, and the Crisis of the West - George Weigel - George Weigel

Let us imagine Western civilization as a stool with three legs.


 
Who Lost the Culture? - Father Jerry J. Pokorsky - Catholic Culture

Most regular visitors to this site would probably agree that our culture is broken.


 
In Fairness to the Pharisees - Father Paul Scalia - The Catholic Thing

In the popular mind, the Pharisees come across as the quintessential villains in the hero's story.


 
'I've discovered the true adventure of a lifetime' - Deacon Raffaele Salvino - B.C. Catholic

"I don't ever want to be a priest," I said to myself with conviction as my elementary school teacher handed out the Lenten "mite boxes" with the name and photo of a seminarian printed on one side.


 
"What It Means To Be Human": A Review - Michael Pakaluk - The Catholic Thing

"The purpose of law is to protect and promote the flourishing of persons."


 
Take it and copy it - Father George W. Rutler - From the Pastor

In the late nineteenth century, a New England college dean wrote: "The youth who loves his Alma Mater will always ask, not 'What can she do for me?' but 'What can I do for her?'"

Editorials of Interest


McCarrick Report: details of abuse ignored - Catholic Culture

The Vatican has issued a 450-page report on former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, acknowledging that reports of McCarrick's sexual misconduct had circulated for years but insisting that Pope Francis was unaware of any serious charges against the influential American prelate until shortly before he was stripped of his ecclesiastical honors.


'If necessary I'll be arrested': the lockdown defying priest - The Spectator

Has there been a single Covid death as a result of someone attending a socially distanced church service? The answer is no, as you'd expect it to be. But, despite this, the Government will ban public acts of worship from Thursday.


Pope Francis' Seismic Shift of the Secretariat of State - NC Register

The move to remove the financial authority of the Vatican department vindicates the financial reforms first undertaken by Cardinal George Pell.


Doctrine, civil unions, and moral legalism - CWR

Why it is wrong to assume that Church doctrine on homosexuality can be changed by papal fiat.


The Good-Enough Marriage - First Things

I have a good marriage.  Is it a great marriage?  I don't know.  Do we squabble?  Plenty.  Do either of us feel shortchanged?  With regularity.  Might we be happier had we married other people twenty-one years ago?  It's certainly possible.  Should I reconsider my marriage?  Heavens no.


Against Indifferentism - Law & Liberty

Men must be at least somewhat moral in order not to be entirely demonic. Therein lies the problem with America's indifferentism. In order to maintain even the minimum of negative peace, civil authority must seek to form men morally. And doing so requires taking a public and political interest in man's true ends.


Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Lessons From the Life and Legacy of Blessed Karl - NC Register

Blessed Karl of Austria-Hungary's great-grandson discusses the continuing relevance of the last Habsburg emperor.


Blessed Emperor Karl I of Austria and Empress Zita - Catholicism.org

We are going to talk here about Ven. Emperor Karl, his life, and the cause for his canonization. We shall do this with a view to showing why the cause merits the popular support it has enjoyed since being introduced in 1949. We shall also speak of Karl's spouse, Empress Zita, whose own life was exemplary in its Catholicity.


The Most Famous - OAFak

Dorothy Sayers on the other deadly sins.


Awakening from the Biden Dream - The Catholic Thing

I've had this dream that Joe Biden, a nominal Catholic who has come now to reject everything of moral consequence taught by his Church, may actually be elected president. And I haven't been able to say the magic words that get me out of this dream.


Donald Trump, Counterrevolutionary - American Greatness

Against all the money and clout of America's revolutionary forces, the counterrevolutionary Trump had only one asset, the proverbial people.


Why 'Catholic' Biden's support for gay 'marriage' is equally as scandalous as his abortion support - LSN

Biden's view of marriage is heretical, and he needs to be called out for it by spiritual shepherds.


Healing the Land on Election Day - CWR

Group behind nationwide Eucharistic Processions organizes all-day Eucharistic Adoration for November 3rd.


Post election thoughts and Q&A with Father James Altman - David L. Gray

Father James Altman answers questions from Catholics on how to handle the election.


Suicide of the Liberals - First Things

Between 1900 and 1917, waves of unprecedented terror struck Russia.


Science meets secular mythology — and loses, again - Catholic Culture

A warning to all scientists not to twist scientific data to advance an agenda.


Wild Cat Island - Richard Carter

Three and a half decades after I first became enchanted by the place, I finally set foot on the island that inspired Arthur Ransome's "Swallows and Amazons."


"Why Sacred Art is Necessary to the Faith," by Professor David Clayton - YouTube

Professor David Clayton, an artist, teacher, and author who has written extensively on sacred art, culture, and their connection to the liturgy, delivers the second talk in this year's Annual Lecture Series, "Why Sacred Art is Necessary to the Faith."


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

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