(Image courtesy of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta website) Fra’ Matthew Festing, Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, offered his resignation at the pope’s request earlier this week. Today, the Sovereign Council of the Order — the only body with the authority to permit his resignation — has accepted his decision. Further,…
We’ve all seen the video of “Doctor” Nucatola of Planned Parenthood, discussing with revolting dispassion — over lunch and a glass of wine — the methods by which babies are dissected alive, “crushed” in certain strategic places, and have their their organs surgically removed for resale. Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards took…
On January 24, 2008, my very first piece of professional writing was published. Marking a controversial foray into a several-year position as a columnist and blogger at InsideCatholic (later to be re-branded under its original name, Crisis Magazine), I told anyone who cared to listen why I had not attended the March for Life just two days before:…
My husband and I have long had a specific goal of raising children who are innocent — not ignorant. We homeschool and make careful choices as to what our six boys read and the movies they watch. So often, these choices of ours are misunderstood by friends and family. Like recently, when a neighbor was over…
(Image: St. Nepomuk, martyr of the Seal of Confession) As was to be expected, the first cases are now coming up where priests are being punished for not going along with the new “spirit” of Amoris Laetitia. That is to say, for not willingly administering the Sacraments (especially Penance and the Eucharist) to the “remarried”…
Editor’s note: The following is the first part of a series. Read Part II, Part III, and Part IV at the links. I. Introduction What is going on in the Church these days? How to understand the origin of our present dilemmas, and what to do about them? Like many of you, I’ve wrestled with…
This week is book-ended with woman-centered marches in our nation’s capital, the Women’s March and the March for Life. The first touted the “rights” of women and trumpeted the need for “progress.” The second seeks progress, too; it urges society to leave behind the dated and detrimental notion that a woman must be allowed to…
Many are familiar with Aristotle’s view of virtue. Simply put, Aristotle proposed virtue as the mean between two vices – but the virtue, he continued, does not fall directly between the two. Instead, it falls closer to one than the other. Thus, for example, he proposed bravery to fall between cowardice (the defect of the…
Before we launch into our usual coverage for the week, we need to do a bit of housekeeping. After researching new options for months, we’ve finally implemented a new donor management software that will provide both us and you with better information and reporting on charitable giving to 1P5. And for those of you who have…
On May 28, 2011, in the small island nation of Malta — nestled in a Mediterranean archipelago between Italy’s boot and Africa’s northern coast — a referendum was held on the topic of divorce. The official religion of the Maltese Republic is Catholicism, and the country traces its Christian origins back all the way to St. Paul,…
Henk Rijkers, the editor of the Catholic weekly, Katholiek Nieuwsblad, was forced out of his job on Christmas eve for questioning Amoris Laetitia. Rijkers held the post of editor for four years and is a 59-year-old father of three adolescent children. Katholiek Nieuwsblad is known as an independent, traditional Catholic newspaper, but since the forcing out of Rijkers Huub…
