VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis has hailed St. Pope John Paul II's role in the fall of the Berlin Wall and urged people to build bridges by opening hearts.
Francis marked the 25th anniversary Sunday of the destruction of the wall symbolizing the Cold War by appealing to all those of good will to foster a "culture of coming together" to bring down all barriers still dividing the world.
Greeting people in St. Peter's Square, he paid tribute to those who worked for the Berlin Wall's end, including those paying with their lives. John Paul II's championing of the Solidarity union in his native Poland is credited with helping bring the demise of Soviet bloc communism.
Pope Francis Hails John Paul II Role in Fall of Berlin Wall
Pope mulls removing Catholic church charges for marriage annulments | CTV News
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis on Wednesday denounced the hardships Catholics can face when seeking marriage annulments, revealing he once fired an official who tried to charge thousands of dollars for one.
Francis told participants at a Vatican course for officials dealing with annulments that as bishop of Buenos Aires, he was dismayed to learn that some faithful needed to travel hundreds of kilometres (miles) and lose days of work to reach church tribunals.
Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/pope-mulls-removing-catholic-church-charges-for-marriage-annulments-1.2088123#ixzz3IUQYL2qF
Raleigh seminarian’s letter to Brittany Maynard
Last week I came across the heartbreaking story of Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer one year after her wedding. When doctors suggested that she might only have six months to live, she and her family moved from California to Oregon in order to obtain the prescriptions necessary for doctor-assisted euthanasia. She is devoting her last days to fundraising and lobbying for an organization dedicated to expanding the legality of assisted suicide to other States.
Brittany’s story really hit home, as I was diagnosed with a very similar incurable brain cancer in 2008 at the age of twenty-four. After years of terrible headaches and misdiagnosis, my Grade III brain cancer (Anaplastic Astrocytoma) proved to be inoperable due to its location. Most studies state that the median survival time for this type of cancer is eighteen months, even with aggressive radiation and chemotherapy. I was beginning an exciting career as a naval officer with my entire life ahead of me. I had so many hopes and dreams, and in an instant they all seemed to be crushed. As Brittany said in her online video, “being told you have that kind of timeline still feels like you’re going to die tomorrow.”
I was diagnosed during my second Navy deployment to the Northern Arabian Gulf. After many seizures, the ship’s doctor sent me to the naval hospital on the Persian Gulf island nation of Bahrain, where my brain tumor was discovered. I remember the moment I saw the computer images of the brain scans – I went to the Catholic chapel on base and fell to the floor in tears. I asked God, “why me?” The next day, I flew home to the United States to begin urgent treatment. A few months after radiation and chemotherapy, I was discharged from the Navy and began formation for the Roman Catholic priesthood, a vocation to which I have felt called since I was nineteen years old. Despite all of the hardships and delays in my training and formation over the past six years, I hope to be ordained to the transitional diaconate this Spring and to the priesthood one year later.
Read more.
Brittany’s story really hit home, as I was diagnosed with a very similar incurable brain cancer in 2008 at the age of twenty-four. After years of terrible headaches and misdiagnosis, my Grade III brain cancer (Anaplastic Astrocytoma) proved to be inoperable due to its location. Most studies state that the median survival time for this type of cancer is eighteen months, even with aggressive radiation and chemotherapy. I was beginning an exciting career as a naval officer with my entire life ahead of me. I had so many hopes and dreams, and in an instant they all seemed to be crushed. As Brittany said in her online video, “being told you have that kind of timeline still feels like you’re going to die tomorrow.”
I was diagnosed during my second Navy deployment to the Northern Arabian Gulf. After many seizures, the ship’s doctor sent me to the naval hospital on the Persian Gulf island nation of Bahrain, where my brain tumor was discovered. I remember the moment I saw the computer images of the brain scans – I went to the Catholic chapel on base and fell to the floor in tears. I asked God, “why me?” The next day, I flew home to the United States to begin urgent treatment. A few months after radiation and chemotherapy, I was discharged from the Navy and began formation for the Roman Catholic priesthood, a vocation to which I have felt called since I was nineteen years old. Despite all of the hardships and delays in my training and formation over the past six years, I hope to be ordained to the transitional diaconate this Spring and to the priesthood one year later.
Read more.
How Would Bilbo Vote?
The midterm elections and the final installment of The Hobbit film trilogy are just around the corner. It's past time somebody asked the burning question: How would Bilbo Baggins vote? For the uninitiated, Bilbo is the title character of the J.R.R. Tolkien novel behind the films, and most people's introduction to The Lord of the Rings, the grand sequel to The Hobbit.
To understand Bilbo, we need look no further than his creator, J.R.R. Tolkien. The clues are not only in Tolkien's collected letters, but also in the novels themselves.
Bilbo's nephew, Frodo, is a proponent of nonviolence near the end of The Lord of the Rings. Plus, Tolkien loved trees and detested the ugly side of industrialism. Surely if the Oxford don were alive today, the thinking goes, he would be a Prius-driving, organic smoothie-drinking, COEXIST bumper sticker-sporting liberal. Wouldn't he?
But wait. What of all the stuff in his work about honor, chivalry, family, battlefield courage and moral absolutes? Focusing on this, some on the left have concluded that, no, Tolkien must have been an old-fashioned dead white male conservative.
Both views can't be right. Is the truth somewhere in the middle? Was Tolkien a soft-edged moderate? Tolkien was a moderate beer drinker. He was a moderately good rugby player as a boy. But there was nothing moderate about his political views.
In the recently released The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom That Tolkien Got, and the West Forgot
coauthors Dr. Jay Richards, a Catholic, and Dr. Jonathan Witt, an Evangelical Christian, show how Tolkien's Middle-Earth novels championed liberty, trade and limited government, key issues in the upcoming midterm elections. They believe Tolkien's novels of Middle-Earth draw us a map to freedom and liberty, and that perhaps brushing up on our Tolkien lore can help us prepare for this midterm election vote.
For more information, contact CarmelCommunications.com.
To understand Bilbo, we need look no further than his creator, J.R.R. Tolkien. The clues are not only in Tolkien's collected letters, but also in the novels themselves.
Bilbo's nephew, Frodo, is a proponent of nonviolence near the end of The Lord of the Rings. Plus, Tolkien loved trees and detested the ugly side of industrialism. Surely if the Oxford don were alive today, the thinking goes, he would be a Prius-driving, organic smoothie-drinking, COEXIST bumper sticker-sporting liberal. Wouldn't he?
But wait. What of all the stuff in his work about honor, chivalry, family, battlefield courage and moral absolutes? Focusing on this, some on the left have concluded that, no, Tolkien must have been an old-fashioned dead white male conservative.
Both views can't be right. Is the truth somewhere in the middle? Was Tolkien a soft-edged moderate? Tolkien was a moderate beer drinker. He was a moderately good rugby player as a boy. But there was nothing moderate about his political views.
In the recently released The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom That Tolkien Got, and the West Forgot
coauthors Dr. Jay Richards, a Catholic, and Dr. Jonathan Witt, an Evangelical Christian, show how Tolkien's Middle-Earth novels championed liberty, trade and limited government, key issues in the upcoming midterm elections. They believe Tolkien's novels of Middle-Earth draw us a map to freedom and liberty, and that perhaps brushing up on our Tolkien lore can help us prepare for this midterm election vote. For more information, contact CarmelCommunications.com.
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