Twenty years ago today, the Berlin Wall was breached and Soviet communism finally entered its death spiral. After claiming more than 100 million victims communism was dismissed to the ash heap of history. But the innocents who were enslaved, imprisoned, tortured, and killed under its demonic reign have largely been ignored, especially by the left and the liberals. [Read more…]
Church Report | by Wesley J. Smith | Oct. 30, 2009
Society’s belief in the unique moral value and importance of human life is under unprecedented assault. Most people still believe in human exceptionalism and are unaware that powerful social and cultural forces are working diligently to dismantle the sanctity of life ethic as the fundamental value of our social order. But the time has come to pay attention. If human life is knocked off the pedestal, universal human rights will be impossible to sustain. [Read more…]
American Thinker | by Andrew Foy and Brenton Stransky | Oct. 31, 2009
The Founding Founders established a Republic under a written Constitution with the clear intent of protecting individual freedom; however, the role of our government has been grossly perverted over the last century to the point where politicians now violate individual rights routinely and without batting an eye. Most violations occur under the banner of providing for the public good, and to garner support, call upon the virtues of charity and sacrifice. Fortunately, charity and sacrifice in a free society are individual and personal undertakings and as a rule, cannot be subject to coercion if liberty is to be maintained. The current President and various members of both political parties do not abide by this rule and as such are positioning themselves as tyrants; servitude will be the price we pay unless we stand up today and defend our rights boldly and educate the broader public on the proper role of charity and sacrifice in a free society. [Read more…]
by Adam Leiter | Sep. 11, 2009
The best way for me to remember 9/11 is to remind everyone of my friend FDNY Firefighter Tommy Gardner, lost in the South Tower on 9/11/01.
He and I were in first grade class together at PS 107 in 1968, in Flushing, Queens, NY. We were in every grade and school together until we graduated high school in 1980. He joined FDNY in 1982. He was in several FDNY units, the last being Hazmat 1. [Read more…]
American Thinker | Mark Wauk | Sep. 6, 2009
The 9/2/09 issue of the Wall Street Journal, in its Notable and Quotable feature, calls attention to an important article that Roman Catholic Bishop R. Walker Nickless of Sioux City, Iowa, published in his diocesan newspaper on the subject of health care and health care reform. The article is important for two reasons: first, because there has been and continues to be a certain amount of confusion regarding Catholic social teaching as it affects health care; second, because Bishop Nickless goes to great lengths to base his discussion on principles, and not merely on tactical considerations. [Read more…]
Townhall.com | Rebecca Hagelin | Aug. 4, 2009
Our teenagers are more sexually active than any generation of youth before them. They also are consuming more pornography and compromising basic moral standards more often. It seems that many of them have lost not only their innocence, but their conscience, too.
The plethora of negative and immoral behaviors glorified by a media world that’s gone stark raving mad — combined with graphic, non-judgmental sex education and a highly sexualized culture in general — causes many of them to lose understanding of what is wrong and what is right. [Read more…]
Touchstone | Leon J. Podles | August 2009
Any institution tends to preserve itself by avoiding conflict, whether external or internal. In addition to this universal tendency, many Christians have a false understanding of the nature and role of anger. It is seen as something negative, something that a Christian should not feel.
In the sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church, those who dealt with the bishops have consistently remarked that the bishops never expressed outrage or righteous anger, even at the most horrendous cases of abuse and sacrilege. Bishops seem to think that anger at sin is un-Christian. Gilbert Kilman, a child psychiatrist, commented, “What amazes me is the lack of outrage the church feels when its good work is being harmed. So, if there is anything the church needs to know, it needs to know how to be outraged.” [Read more…]
FrontPageMag | Dennis Prager | June 30, 2009
How many politically incorrect movies has Hollywood made in the last generation? How many films, for instance, have depicted communist evil? Given that Communism murdered more than 100 million innocents — in peacetime! — and enslaved about 1 billion more, one would think that Hollywood would have made a fair number of movies depicting the horrors of communism. But aside from “Dr. Zhivago” and “The Killing Fields,” I cannot think of any. There are, of course, innumerable films depicting Nazi evil — as well there should be — but it takes no courage to make films depicting Nazis as evil. [Read more…]
Townhall.com | Ann Coulter | June 3, 2009
In the wake of the shooting of late-term abortionist George Tiller, President Barack Obama sent out a welcome message that this nation would not tolerate attacks on pro-lifers or any other Americans because of their religion or beliefs.
Ha ha! Just kidding. That was the lead sentence — with minor edits — of a New York Times editorial warning about theoretical hate crimes against Muslims published eight months after 9/11. Can pro-lifers get a hate crimes bill passed and oceans of ink devoted to assuring Americans that “most pro-lifers are peaceful”? [Read more…]
American Thinker | Bruce Walker | May 12, 2009
Sherman was right: War is Hell. The current war against the Judeo-Christian world waged by al-Qaida and other radical Moslems is no different. War is Hell and Hell is full of torments. Our role, as children of a Loving God, is to make that Hell and those torments as quick, as slight, and as limited as possible. But it is not our power to end pain, to make peace, or to stop torture.
We cannot stop a Holocaust without inflicting pain. We cannot end the Gulag without hurting people. We cannot free slaves without the horror of civil war. We can be silent, passive, and helpless in the face of evil, and, perhaps, survive. But we cannot stop evil without fighting evil, and that battle cannot be conducted without hurting people. [Read more…]