Philip Kosloski – published on 04/21/17 – updated on 04/01/21 Even though it’s Friday, you are free to find a steak and dive in! Throughout the year, Catholics are asked to practice a form of penance each Friday. Traditionally this was abstaining from meat, but after Vatican II the US bishops wrote a pastoral letter explaining a change, though still reiterating the point that Fridays, even outside of Lent, should still be a day of weekly penance. Friday itself remains a special day of penitential observance throughout the year, a time when those who seek perfection will be mindful of their personal sins and the sins of mankind …
Category: Current Issues
One Catholic’s Changed Perspective on Gun Control
CV NEWS FEED // The Biden Administration announced several new executive actions on gun control Thursday. The CatholicVote team thought now would be a good time to remind readers of a compelling essay written in 2017 by an anti-gun Catholic whose own research led her to a new perspective. “Before I started researching gun deaths, gun-control policy used to frustrate me,” wrote Leah Libresco for the Washington Post. “I wished the National Rifle Association would stop blocking common-sense gun-control reforms such as banning assault weapons, restricting silencers, shrinking magazine sizes, and all the other measures that could make guns less deadly.” But then Libresco …
Why I Signed “To Awaken Conscience”
By Michael Pakaluk Michael Pakaluk is a philosopher who lives in Hyattsville, Maryland, with his wife and their eight children. His most recent book is Mary’s Voice in the Gospel According to St. John (Regnery Gateway). The statement “To Awaken Conscience” on so-called “abortion tainted” vaccines was meant to propose an ideal, not give arguments. I signed it because I agree with that ideal. But a philosopher should have reasons too, and here I wish to give them. These reasons also explain why I reject the statement recently offered by some Catholics under the auspices of the Ethics & Public Policy Center (EPPC). In ethical questions, one has to …
Justice Clarence Thomas fires a warning shot at social media companies over free speech
‘Unprecedented … is control of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties’ Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas raised eyebrows over a statement appearing to warn social media companies that their rights to censor objectionable speech might be curtailed soon.POLL: What scares you the most? Thomas made his thoughts known in a 12-page concurrent opinion on a Supreme Court decision that considered whether former President Donald Trump had acted unconstitutionally when he banned several people from following his now-defunct Twitter account. That lawsuit was ruled moot because Trump had been permanently banned. Thomas mused that the argument from the plaintiffs were …
Democrat Florida Mayor Says ‘60 Minutes’ Report On DeSantis ‘Intentionally False’
APRIL 5, 2021 By Tristan Justice. Tristan is a staff writer at The Federalist focusing on the 2020 presidential campaigns. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Democrat Mayor of Palm Beach County Dave Kerner railed against CBS’s “60 Minutes” Monday after the flagship program broadcast a special on Florida’s vaccine efforts where it manipulated interviews to amplify a manufactured narrative. The program charged the state’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis with engaging in political patronage to prioritize vaccine distribution through Publix, the most widespread chain in Florida, which donated to his 2018 campaign. Kerner said the special was “not just based on bad information …
Fear of Being in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time
By Renee Rasmussen Renee Rasmussen is a student at The Catholic University of America. I grew up near Los Angeles and now I live in Washington, D.C. So I have had my fair share of city experiences. Last year, I was on the Washington metro with a friend when a fight broke out, and we were caught in the middle. I’ve been on a train where two men have threatened to rape a friend sitting next to me. Most recently, I have been screamed at by a stranger as she threatened to shoot me. I do not write this to victimize myself …
Is Mary Co-Redeemer?
By David McPike David McPike is a husband, father of six, and aspiring market gardener near Calgary, Alberta. In addition to an engineering degree, he earned a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Ottawa examining and defending Thomas Aquinas’s account of transubstantiation in relation to the critique of another important thirteenth-century Dominican master of theology, Dietrich of Freiberg. He blogs occasionally at davidmcpike.blogspot.com. Recently, Pope Francis declared that the Blessed Virgin Mary is the one “to whom Jesus entrusted us, all of us; but as a Mother, not as a goddess, not as co-redeemer (non come dea, non come corredentrice): as Mother.” This comment …
Survey: Two-thirds of Catholics say Biden should be able to receive Communion
Washington D.C., Mar 31, 2021 / 04:00 am (CNA).- Two-thirds of U.S. Catholics say that President Joe Biden, who has contradicted Church teaching on abortion, marriage, and gender ideology, should be allowed to receive Communion. According to a Pew Research Center survey released on Tuesday, 67% of U.S. Catholics say that Biden should be allowed to receive Communion at Mass, while fewer than one-third (29%) believe he should not be allowed to receive. Beliefs on Communion fell somewhat along party lines, with 55% of Catholic Republicans – or those who lean Republican – saying that Biden should be denied Communion, …
The Sixth Death of the Church
Lauren Enk Mann obtained her B.A. in English Language and Literature from Christendom College. An avid fan of G.K. Chesterton, she writes about film, pop culture, literature, and the New Evangelization. The Church’s “summer of shame” has devastated the faithful. The McCarrick revelations, the Pennsylvania grand jury, and the Viganò testimony have sent reverberations of scandal right through the highest clerical ranks. Catholics in the pews feel betrayed and abandoned, in solidarity with the victims who have suffered so much. Each new day has brought to light fresh wounds, and it seems as if the Church is hemorrhaging, bleeding to death …
Four basic truths about Genesis and Creation
Reverend Peter M.J. Stravinskas is the editor of The Catholic Response, and the author of over 500 articles for numerous Catholic publications, as well as several books, including The Catholic Church and the Bible and Understanding the Sacraments. Editor’s note: The following homily preached by the Reverend Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D., on February 12, 2019, at the Church of the Holy Innocents, Manhattan. Beginning yesterday and for the next couple of weeks, at daily Mass the Church will be treating us to passages from the Book of Genesis. This afternoon, I shall limit myself to the first two chapters, given that this is …