Originally at: http://www.joefessenden.com/2014/08/26/im-a-little-teapot/

by Joe Fessenden

This entry is my journal entry from my holy hour on Monday, August 25, 2014. I’m trying something new for my journal. I’m using an app for the iPad that I just write in, so I’m gonna try something new here, too. I’m putting up a PDF of my original handwritten (albeit electronically) version. I’m also going to transcribe it (perhaps with minor edits) as my actual entry.

There are some who try to explain our distance from God, and our value and that which we do as a pile of dung covered in snow. The illustration is of a theological principal known as total depravity. The problem with this illustration is ...

Originally at: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2014/08/20/elderly-iraqi-christians-defy-islamic-state-terrorists/

by  SIMON CALDWELL

A group of 11 sick, disabled and elderly Iraqi Christians — including an 80-year-old woman with breast cancer — defied terrorists who ordered them to convert to Islam or be beheaded, saying they preferred death to giving up their faith.

The united resistance prompted the Islamic State extremists (formerly ISIS) to drop their demands and order the Christians to immediately leave their village of Karamless after first robbing them of their possessions, according to one of the survivors.

Sahar Mansour, a refugee from Mosul, told Catholic News Service in an email that the group ...

Originally at: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/sex-after-christianity/

by Rod Dreher

Twenty years ago, new president Bill Clinton stepped on a political landmine when he tried to fulfill a campaign promise to permit gay soldiers to serve openly. Same-sex marriage barely registered as a political cause; the country was then three years away from the Defense of Marriage Act and four years from comedian Ellen DeGeneres’s prime-time coming out.

Then came what historians will one day recall as a cultural revolution. Now we’re entering the endgame of the struggle over gay rights and the meaning of homosexuality. Conservatives have been routed, both in court and increasingly in the court of public opinion. ...

Originally at: http://www.ucatholic.com/blog/beheaded-journalist-james-foley-on-praying-the-rosary-in-captivity/

James Foley an American journalist beheaded by the brutal, evil Islamic State in a video posted online. Before being captured in Syria in 2012, Mr. Foley had been a captive in another conflict area, Libya. After being released from his LIbyan captivity, Foley wrote an article for his alumni mater, Marquette University’s magazine about his experience in captivity and praying the rosary:

I began to pray the rosary. It was what my mother and grandmother would have prayed. 
I said 10 Hail Marys between each Our Father. It took a long time, almost an hour to count 100 Hail Marys off on my ...