This week, the Senate Finance Committee is scheduled to vote on the health-care bill. If it passes, the Finance bill will be reconciled with the bill already passed by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Then health-care reform will go to the Senate floor for a vote. The Finance Committee version does … Read more
With his popularity ratings plummeting and public resistance to his health-care reform proposals increasing, President Barack Obama spoke to Congress and a national television audience for 48 minutes last night. Though touted as his “health-care speech,” the more important subtext was the future of Obama’s presidency itself. He has let it be known that his … Read more
If ever there were a time when Catholics should not trust the United States government, it is now. The president, his administration, and the congressional leadership are removing all the abortion restrictions put in place since Roe v. Wade. And yet, the bishops are backing a proposal to give the federal government complete control … Read more
The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court reminded us once again of the never-ending debate as to whether judges should “legislate from the bench.” Political conservatives, of course, say that they must not. The job of judges, we are told, is to judge … Read more
 The Congress and the White House have little to fear from the bishops’ official statements opposing the abortion provisions in the health care bill. Unlike with President Barack Obama’s appearance at Notre Dame, there is no chorus of bishops’ voices rising in protest against the bill; most of the Catholics in Congress support it, … Read more
In the late afternoon of July 10, President Obama met privately with Pope Benedict XVI for just over 30 minutes. According to official Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi, S.J., “The president explicitly expressed his commitment to reducing the numbers of abortions and to listen to the church’s concern on moral issues.” On July 13 in … Read more
Matthew Lickona is a Catholic writer who understands the new media, as a visit to his classy Web site immediately attests. Already well-known for his book Swimming with Scapulars: True Confessions of a Young Catholic (Loyola Press, 2006), Lickona also understands the changing habits of younger readers, which is why he has published the first … Read more
 With a pro-abortion president in the White House, new sub-groups in the broader “culture of death” are coming into view. One of them is dark, indeed.  Take two recent events: Dr. George Tiller is compared to Martin Luther King, Jr. The president of Catholics for Choice attacks a political appointee, Alexia Kelley, who … Read more
The 2012 Obama campaign message to Catholics has already been written. Here it is, conveniently laid out by the official Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, and its editor, Giovanni Maria Vian: “[President Obama] is not a pro-abortion president.” — Giovanni Maria Vian, in an interview with a Vatican analyst from the Italian daily Il Riformista “The … Read more
The scandal of President Barack Obama receiving an honorary degree at Notre Dame yesterday pales in comparison with the ongoing scandal of Catholics in Congress. Of the 161 Catholics presently serving, only 26 have 100 percent pro-life voting records, while 28 have a zero percent rating. Sixty-five have less than a 20 percent pro-life rating … Read more
If you’re like me, you can’t wait for Barack Obama to speak at the University of Notre Dame — if only because it will put a stop to the flurry of news stories and commentaries about the scandal. (Such as . . . the one you’re presently reading. And my piece from two weeks ago … Read more
Last week, we started looking at the broad movement among some conservatives (including Catholics) over the past several years to excuse, minimize, defend, and champion the use of torture by the U.S. government in the “War on Terror.” Among Catholics, in particular, the conversation has taken place at multiple levels, since the Catholic torture defender … Read more
Suppose I asked, “Are there any circumstances when it would be okay for the president to order an interrogator to crush a nine-year-old boy’s testicles?” What would you answer? Â If you are a normal person and not John Yoo, the man who, from 2001 to 2003 was employed as the Justice Department’s legal advisor … Read more
Last year, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) announced it would no longer fund the community-organizing arm of ACORN, a decision based on the disclosure of ACORN’s explicitly partisan efforts on behalf of President Barack Obama’s political campaign. Now a much more egregious use of Catholic money has been alleged. LifeSiteNews (LSN), which operates … Read more
Was it Oscar Wilde who remarked that life imitates art? Whoever said it, the University of Notre Dame campus is living proof that it’s so. Just look at those trees. Last time I visited Notre Dame it was June. The weather was splendid, with that crystalline splendor that only June — no longer tremulous spring, … Read more
Pro-life Catholics fall into two camps on the issue of abortion: those who see it first and foremost as an individual moral failing, and those who consider it primarily a social moral failing. Â There is nothing mutually exclusive about the two positions, of course, but that isn’t the problem. The real issue here is … Read more
“So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.” Â — Eph 4:25 There are an estimated 3,500 abortions taking place in America every day. Many Catholics who state their desire to reduce that number nevertheless supported the election of Barack Obama to … Read more
If you think the pro-life movement has run out of energy and new ideas, you should meet Lila Rose. You may not know her name, but you very likely have seen the media coverage of her various sting operations at Planned Parenthood clinics around the country. Rose is 20 years old, but she is already … Read more
I wasn’t a particularly devout teenager. I knew it was important to go to Sunday Mass, but I honestly found it rather dull at times. So it was tremendously satisfactory when, one Sunday, there was high drama. A man got up from the congregation during the priest’s sermon and shouted at him. From where … Read more
For the past few years, the buzz about Rev. John I. Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame since 2005, has been very positive. In spite of his refusal to ban The Vagina Monologues from the campus, Father Jenkins was viewed as strengthening the Catholic identity of the nation’s most beloved Catholic institution. … Read more