Pro-Life Assault I am troubled by what appears to be a growing trend of violent attacks on peaceful pro-life activists. Perhaps the most famous recent instance was caught in a dramatic video last fall. The video shows a twenty-something-year-old man wearing a purple sweater, with a pentagram (a pagan symbol) on a necklace around his . . . Read more
Amina Khamis Juma is 22 years old and lives in Mbande-Kisewe, near Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. After delivering her first child in 2016, she was persuaded by her sisters to begin using contraception since the couple did not wish to have another child. Her sisters suggested using condoms, but they caused pain and discomfort, so . . . Read more
‘You Were Made for Greatness’ “The world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness!” This is a quotation often attributed to Pope Benedict XVI. There is some debate about whether the pope ever said precisely these words. However, it is quite clear that he often said extremely . . . Read more
Amidst Suffering Martyrs Shine Like Sparks through Rubble At 8:45am on Easter Sunday, about 1000 Catholics were gathered to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord at St. Anthony’s Shrine in Colombo, Sri Lanka. That’s when the suicide bomber detonated his bomb. The explosion ripped through the church, killing dozens and injuring countless more. Many of . . . Read more
The State of the Faith in Europe and Easter Hope It is almost impossible not to find a dire symbolism in the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on the first day of Holy Week, the day after – as Ross Douthat points out – Catholics worldwide listened to a Gospel in which St. . . . Read more
Looking to Cardinal Sarah Recently I travelled to Phoenix in order to lead a mission. When I arrived at the airport, I was stunned to see a group of people holding signs welcoming home a child who had either just undergone a “sex change” or who was travelling to Phoenix for the procedure. A child! . . . Read more
To claim the right to abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and to recognize that right in law, means to attribute to human freedom a perverse and evil significance: that of an absolute power over others and against others. This is the death of true freedom: “Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin . . . Read more
Wake Up to the Threat A so-called “human rights tribunal” in Canada has just ruled that a Christian activist must pay $55,000 to a provincial politician because he referred to this politician as a “biological male” in a political pamphlet. The politician in question, Morgane Oger (born Ronan Oger), is a biological male. However, he . . . Read more
The Humanity of the Unborn Child and God’s Infinite Mercy “What she saw changed everything.” That’s the tagline for the new movie Unplanned, which tells the true story about former Planned Parenthood abortion clinic director Abby Johnson. The movie is being released in theaters this Friday – March 29. Fittingly, the release comes the same . . . Read more
“What is urgently called for,” wrote Pope St. John Paul II in the great pro-life encyclical Evangelium Vitae, “is a general mobilization of consciences and a united ethical effort to activate a great campaign in support of life.” (EV, ¶95) The vast and multifarious pro-life movement, with its ever-expanding networks of crisis pregnancy centers, mobile ultrasound units, . . . Read more
