“October Baby,” a movie with a pro-life message, opened on March 2. Abortion fans trembled. The A.V. Club, an entertainment website, called the film “propaganda for the already converted.” The Detroit News branded it “indecent propaganda” (decent propaganda would be a pro-abortion movie). The St. Paul Pioneer Press said the flick had “a lesson it wants [...]
The Hollywood of the 1950’s respected religion and avoided crudity. Today, it promotes crudity and trashes Christianity, especially Catholicism. Enter the “The Three Stooges.” The movie is a cultural marker of sociological significance. What it says about the way we’ve changed is not encouraging. According to one AP movie critic, the directors “never wanted to tinker [...]
Madonna’s new CD, MDNA, broke no records. Her single, “Girl Gone Wild,” didn’t make the Billboard 100 was called “the worst single she’s ever released.” That was too kind. The song’s obscene video shows the 53-year-old tramping around in black hot pants and stiletto heels while gyrating with well-greased topless guys in tight black pants. The [...]
On Saturday, March 25, atheists staged a “Reason Rally” in Washington, D.C. Although atheists claim that people of faith brainwash kids, it is they who are the masters. “Hey Kids,” one of the signs read, “It’s Okay—GOD is PRETEND.” Being vulgar comes natural to them: “Religion is Like a Penis,” another sign read, “It’s OK to [...]
A recent Gallup poll found that 73 to 80 percent of the public consider the following issues to be either extremely important or very important in this year’s presidential election campaign: healthcare; unemployment; the federal budget deficit and national debt; international issues, including national defense and terrorism; and gas prices. Only 44 percent answered that way [...]
Ever fond of Christians, Newsweek decided to roll out the venerable Andrew Sullivan for its April 9 cover story, a Holy Week special called “Christianity in Crisis.” Quite a choice. Sullivan likes the teachings of Christianity (well, some) but not its teachers. In his aversion to organized religion, he does not address how religion can be [...]
It’s official: the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) rejects Church teachings. A recent editorial, “NCR Endorses Call for a New Sexual Ethic,” supported retired Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson’s plea for the Church to change its teachings on sexuality. Bishop Robinson wrote a book a few years ago called Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church. Here [...]
Cuba acceded to Pope Benedict XVI’s request, declaring Good Friday a holiday. In the U.S., nine major league baseball games were played. Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig should took a page from the Communists and exercised some prudence: there should be no games on Good Friday. In 2009, Congressman Anthony Weiner asked Selig to move the start [...]
When an agency of the bishops’ conference was awarded a five-year grant in 2006 to fight human trafficking, the proposal explicitly said that no funds would be spent on “activities that would be contrary to our moral convictions and religious beliefs.” At the end of last year, when the bishops sought to renew their grant, their [...]
The U.S. Supreme Court decided not to accept a church-state case that involved the Archdiocese of St. Louis. A man claimed he was abused by another man back in 1971 when he was a teenager. The alleged offender is dead. The alleged victim never knew what supposedly happened to him until one day, in therapy ten [...]
