Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Islamic terror driving Christians out of Mali : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic Culture's Catholic World News:
  • The Vatican newspaper has called attention to the flight of Christians escaping Islamic persecution in Mali.
  • As many as 200,000 Christians from Mali have found their way to refugee camps in Algeria and Mauritania, L’Osservatore Romano reports.
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Islamic terror driving Christians out of Mali : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Pakistani Christian children under attack; rape, murder, kidnapping are common : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic Culture's Catholic World News:
  • The Fides news service has called attention to “a long trail of Christian children killed for different reasons” in Pakistan, as well as many incidents of young Christians kidnapped, raped, and enslaved.
  • The common denominator in these horrible cases, Fides notes, is an attitude among Pakistan’s Muslims: “Christian children are considered ‘goods’ and deprived of their dignity.”
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Pakistani Christian children under attack; rape, murder, kidnapping are common : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Islamist terrorists attack Catholic parish in Nigeria : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpt is from Catholic Culture's Catholic World News:
  • After destroying part of a school, gunmen attacked a Catholic parish and police station in Yobe State in northeastern Nigeria but were repulsed.
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Islamist terrorists attack Catholic parish in Nigeria : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Spanish Catholic justice fends off calls to recuse himself in abortion case :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

The following excerpts are from CNA (Catholic News Agency):
  • Justice Andres Ollero of Spain's Constitutional Court, who will write the ruling on a case challenging the country's 2010 abortion law, has warded off calls to recuse himself because he is Catholic.
  • “It makes no sense to think that the justices come to the (court) with preconceived prescriptions,” Justice Ollero said in an Aug. 16 article published by the ABC newspaper.
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Spanish Catholic justice fends off calls to recuse himself in abortion case :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Survey reveals increasing hostility in US towards religion :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

The following excerpts are from CNA (Catholic News Agency):
  • A report examining court cases from recent years has found that hostility towards religion has grown to unprecedented levels in the United States.
  • The newly-updated Survey of Religious Hostility in America serves as “a testament to the radical shift in our culture’s worldview” on religion, said Kelly Shackelford, president of Liberty Institute, and Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council.
  • On Aug. 20, Shackelford and Perkins announced the release of the updated analysis, describing “more than 600 recent examples of religious hostility” in the U.S., most occurring in the last decade.
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Survey reveals increasing hostility in US towards religion :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Friday, August 10, 2012

LCWR assembly: some sisters disagree with panelist over response to Vatican : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic Culture's Catholic World News:
  • At the second day of the annual assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the publisher of the National Catholic Reporter called upon the sisters present to “just say no” to Vatican concerns—leading to “audible groans” from some of the sisters.
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LCWR assembly: some sisters disagree with panelist over response to Vatican : News Headlines - Catholic Culture


Thursday, August 09, 2012

Obama Pro-Abortion HHS Mandate Faces September Court Date | LifeNews.com

The following excerpts are from LifeNews.com:
  • Before the November elections, pro-life advocates could have a result in one of the dozens of lawsuits taking on the Obama HHS mandate that forces religious employers to pay for abortion-causing drugs for their employees.
  • Federal District Judge Robert H. Cleland of the Eastern District of Michigan has set the date of September 26 to hear oral arguments on whether the federal government should be enjoined from enforcing the HHS Mandate. The hearing will take place at the U.S. Courthouse in Detroit, Michigan.
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Obama Pro-Abortion HHS Mandate Faces September Court Date | LifeNews.com

Gingrich on Sebelius: 'She Is Waging War on The Catholic Church’ | CNSNews.com

The following excerpts are from CNSNews.com:
  • Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on Wednesday that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was “waging war on the Catholic Church”--an apparent reference to the Obamacare regulation she finalized earlier this year that requires nearly all health-care plans to offer sterilizations, contraceptives, and abortion-inducing drugs free of charge.
  • “This secretary of HHS is a radical. She is waging war on the Catholic Church. She’s adopted radical positions on a range of issues,” Gingrich said during a conference call on Wednesday.
  • Gingrich made his remarks while discussing the HHS decision to grant waivers to the work requirements for welfare.
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Gingrich on Sebelius: 'She Is Waging War on The Catholic Church’ | CNSNews.com

Pax Christi, Call to Action chapters plan to oppose diocese, back HHS mandate in court : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic Culture's Catholic World News:
  • Call to Action Pennsylvania, Catholics for Social Justice, Pittsburgh Area Pax Christi and the Association of Pittsburgh Priests are seeking permission from a judge to file a friend-of-the-court brief in defense of the HHS mandate.
  • The four organizations criticized the Diocese of Erie, which has filed suit to overturn the mandate, for “join[ing] the attack on an important legislative effort to provide universal health care -- a vital human right that Church teaching has supported for decades as a natural right possessed by all people as a matter of social justice.”
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Pax Christi, Call to Action chapters plan to oppose diocese, back HHS mandate in court : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Wednesday, August 08, 2012

Continue the Fortnight for Freedom Spirit Against Obama's HHS Mandate | LifeNews.com

Continue the Fortnight for Freedom Spirit Against Obama's HHS Mandate | LifeNews.com

Chicago Values, Revisited: it’s not about chicken! - Cardinal's Network

The following excerpts are from Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago, on the Cardinal's Network:
  • There are three contexts for discussing “gay marriage”: 1) the arena of individual rights and their protection in civil law, 2) the field of activities defined by nature and its laws, and 3) the realm of faith as a response to God’s self-revelation in history. Unfortunately, when the only permissible context for discussing public values is that of individual rights protected by civil law, then it is the government alone that determines how it is acceptable to act. Every public actor (including faith communities) then becomes the government’s agent. This is a formula for tyranny.
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Chicago Values, Revisited: it’s not about chicken! - Cardinal's Network

Boko Haram threatens Muslims too, archbishop says : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from Catholic Culture's Catholic World News:
  • A terrorist attack on a mosque in central Nigeria shows that “Boko Haram is a threat to everyone, not just Christians,” observed Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja.
  • Four people were killed when gunmen assaulted the mosque in Okene on August 8. A day earlier, at least 20 people had been killed in a similar attack on the Deeper Life Church in the same town. (Early reports had set the death toll at 19, but at least one more victim has succumbed to wounds.)
  • Archbishop Onaiyekan said that the attack on the mosque was not unprecedented, “but previous attacks against mosques have not had the same prominence of attacks against Christian churches, perhaps because when Islamic groups attack a mosque it is not news.” In fact, he said, Boko Haram has probably claimed more Muslim than Christian victims in its terrorist activities.
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Boko Haram threatens Muslims too, archbishop says : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

Sunday, August 05, 2012

Chick-fil-A and Chicago: A heads-up for the Church - By Joe Tremblay

The following excerpts are from the Catholic News Agency (CNA) column by Joe Trembley:
  • Timing is everything. This maxim is especially the case if good is to prevail over evil. Whether it be personal sin or political tyranny, response to a crisis is most effective when it is done in the beginning stages.
  • As the spiritual classic, the "Imitation of Christ," cautions: "(W)e must watch, especially in the beginning of temptation; for then the enemy is more easily overcome, if he be not suffered to enter the door of the mind, but is withstood upon the threshold the very moment he knocks. Whence a certain one has said 'Resist beginnings; all too late the cure.'"
  • What applies to sin in the spiritual order also applies to injustice in the political order. And just as with personal sin, when government is a menace to liberty it must be met head-on at the outset.
  • If history bears witness to the fact that secular-liberalism, when unleashed, runs roughshod over human rights, then the HHS contraceptive mandate is only a harbinger of things to come. This mandate bids us to resist the social and political intolerance while there is time to do so.
  • We can anticipate the State not stopping at coercing Catholic agencies to provide abortifacients and contraceptives to her employees.
  • No.
  • There is another demand that is turning out to be--and will certainly prove to be–a more pressing matter. Indeed, the political will to advance same-sex marriage and criminalize its opposition are much more emotionally charged than the demand for contraception. Enter Chick-fil-A.

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Chick-fil-A and Chicago: A heads-up for the Church - By Joe Tremblay