When the “The Exorcist” premiered 50 years ago, in December 1973, some theatergoers fainted or broke down in tears. A few even vomited.
The film, which cast a young Linda Blair as a girl claiming to be possessed by the devil, was an almost instant success, with moviegoers waiting in line for hours to secure tickets. It went on to gross over US$440 million worldwide.
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President Biden’s Summit for Democracy hasn’t yet provoked the sort of debate about Biden’s relationship to his church that abortion has. But questions about the president’s adherence to church teaching may be as applicable to democracy as it is to a woman’s right to choose since, in both cases, Roman Catholicism has much to say. In the case of democracy, Americans used to view Rome, a hierarchical church that had a long history of cooperation with emperors and monarchs, as an arch opponent of the nation’s democratic politics. Until the 1960s, the perception may have been accurate, but today it is a relic of an earlier era in church history.
One question that emerged after the Summit for Democracy is whether Biden’s faith might explain the presence of nations who seem to lean more authoritarian than democratic. As the story in the New York Times put it, “It was no surprise that China and Russia were not included, but the administration was second-guessed for its decision to invite other countries with checkered human rights records, like the Philippines and Nigeria, while excluding NATO allies Turkey and Hungary, both led by rulers with authoritarian streaks.”
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Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone rebuked Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi Thursday for calling herself a “devout Catholic” in her defense of taxpayer funded abortion.
“Let me repeat,” the San Francisco archbishop said in a statement. “No one can claim to be a devout Catholic and condone the killing of innocent human life, let alone have the government pay for it. The right to life is a fundamental — the most fundamental — human right, and Catholics do not oppose fundamental human rights.”
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Catholic parishes, schools, and dioceses have for years responded to transgenderism by simply ignoring the issue altogether. But that’s starting to change, largely because the problem is getting too big for churches to ignore.
“My sense is that nearly every parish includes families with loved ones grappling with identity issues or gender dysphoria,” Mary Rice Hasson told The American Spectator.
Hasson, who directs the Catholic Women’s Forum at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, recently founded an initiative called the Person and Identity Project, which aims to equip Catholic parishes and schools with resources to combat gender ideology.
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Ponder this…
The two great commandments are to love God and to love your neighbor. And your neighbor being virtually everybody else in the whole world, is this even possible? Let’s examine how good we are at loving our neighbor. Ask yourself these questions. Do I get aggravated with others easily? Am I quick to judge the behavior of others?
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Ponder this…
Not many people like to be told what to do. Even as young children, we didn’t like to be told to clean our rooms, do the dishes or come home at a designated curfew. We want to do what we want, when we want and how we want. But is this what the Lord is asking us to do? Let’s take a look at sacred scripture for the answer.
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Pope Francis endorsed same-sex civil unions for the first time as pontiff while being interviewed for the feature-length documentary “Francesco,” which premiered Wednesday at the Rome Film Festival.
The papal thumbs-up came midway through the film that delves into issues Francis cares about most, including the environment, poverty, migration, racial and income inequality, and the people most affected by discrimination.
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Ponder this…
We make choices every day, whether or not to press the snooze button in the morning is but one of the choices we make each day. Most choices like pressing the snooze button seem inconsequential, but if pressing the snooze button makes you late for work and potentially threatens your job and your livelihood, the snooze button option becomes a bad choice.
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Ponder this…
There are new terms that have recently entered our daily vocabulary. One of these rather annoying terms is social distancing. Who would have imagined that there would be six foot markers on the floors of commercial retail and even religious establishments, indicating our limitations to access one another.
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Ponder this…
We’ve all heard about the 10 commandments. So let’s talk about those pesky little often inconvenient truths, and let’s face it. We don’t like anyone telling us what we can, especially what we cannot do. Not even God. So do these commandments still apply to us today? You betcha. God knew everything when he gave them to us.
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Ponder this…
We hear from many of the people running for public office, the promise of free stuff, free healthcare for all, free education for all. Free cell phones, free food, and the list goes on and on. Many of us have bought into the idea that we deserve free stuff. But have we really thought about what the Lord has said about this?
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Ponder this…
One of the most underrated career choices is motherhood.
Being a mother is more than a career, it’s a vocation. It’s actually a calling from God, the author of life. In today’s modern world, motherhood, fatherhood, and family life are often seen as optional choices to be made at the sole discretion of a woman or a man.
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Ponder this…
Did you know that Catholics don’t go to church services on Sundays?
We crazy Catholics actually do something called assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. If you don’t understand this, don’t feel bad. Many Catholics don’t understand what the Mass is all about.
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The U.S. Navy has reportedly ended Catholic church services on San Diego-area bases for cost purposes, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.
The Navy declined to renew contracts with priests who were contracted to assist the Chaplain Corps, an active-duty group containing few Catholic clergy members, according to a Tribune report on Saturday. The new changes are from a national realignment announced in August.
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Democrat Joe Biden has built his half-century in politics largely on the myth that he is a faithful Catholic with working class roots. In reality Biden is neither a faithful Catholic, nor a friend of America’s blue-collar citizens.
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