Today, Father Dave Dwyer and I welcome several guests to “Conversation with Cardinal Dolan.”
Podcast (homilies): Download (33.5MB)
The Wall Street Journal has an excellent “Houses of Worship” column by Rabbi Sacks called “A New Movement Against Religious Persecution.” Here is an excerpt:
“According to the Religious Freedom in the World Report 2014 by the Catholic Church’s Aid to the Church in Need organization, freedom of religion has deteriorated in almost half the countries of the world, and sectarian violence is at a six-year high. Yet freedom of religion is one of the basic human rights, as set out in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. …
The world needs a new, enlightened movement: of…
Religious freedom is in peril in many places around the world, with the violent persecution of Christians in Iraq being just the most recent horrifying example of religious persecution. The kidnapping of schoolgirls and the bombing of Christian churches by Boko Haram, the treatment of Jewish, Orthodox, and Christians in the Euromaidan movement in the Ukraine, the ever-present threat of violence against our Jewish brothers and sisters (like the recent anti-Semetic episodes in Europe), all point to the pressing need for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a compelling force to combat the persecution of Christians, Jews,…
In response to the ad on p. A13 in today’s New York Times, here’s my Catholic New York column:
I prayed, I hoped, that the notoriously anti-Catholic firebrands of the nebulous and anonymous “Freedom From Religion Foundation” (FFRF) in Madison, Wisconsin, would once again, as they predictably had in the past, print a full-page, drippingly bigoted blast in the hospitable pages of the New York Times.
So I smiled in relief as a friend called to ask me—ironically, on the day before Independence Day, celebrating what is most noble and freedom-loving in our beloved country—if I had seen the anticipated ad in…
In case you missed them, here are some excellent responses in today’s papers to yesterday’s Supreme Court pro-religious liberty decision in the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood case.
Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Archbishop of Louisville, wrote an outstanding column in today’s New York Post.
The Post also has an excellent editorial, as does the New York Daily News.
And Kathryn Jean Lopez, of Catholic Voices USA, one of the best writers around, has an op-ed in the News.
Enjoy!
Cardinal Dolan’s homily at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Podcast: Download (17.3MB)
George Weigel writes in the Wall Street Journal about a wonderful tradition in Rome…that is undertaken by Americans! (It was begun by seminarians and student-priests from the Pontifical North American College…where I used to be stationed.) As we prepare to begin Lent, I thought you’d enjoy this piece:
“On March 5, Ash Wednesday, hundreds of residents of Rome will begin a six-and-a-half-week long pilgrimage to the Roman station churches of Lent—a tradition that began in the earliest days of legalized Christianity but, until recently, had lain fallow…
The station churches themselves, especially those off the tourist track, often astonish. The apse…
Here is a timely and informative editorial from the New York Post on the plight of Arab Christians that I thought you should read:
There, an offshoot of al Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), has forced local Christians to submit to a treaty that grants them protection in exchange for paying a tax in gold and giving up public displays of their faith. As bad as that is, it clearly beats the other choices: convert to Islam or “face the sword.”
In return for ISIS protection, the Christians cannot renovate churches, display crosses, read Scripture…
Recently I read this moving piece on the plight of Christians in the Middle East. It is our duty to stand up for them as is eloquently outlined by Johnnie Moore, author and Professor of Religion and Vice President at Liberty University, on FoxNews.com:
I wept as I heard their stories, and I wondered why Christians around the world weren’t incensed by it all.
Ironically, that meeting in Jordan was not convened by Christians, but by Muslims who cared about the plight of their Christian neighbors.
At one point, Jordan’s strong and kind king said that “it is a duty rather than…
Sunday is always colorful, interesting, and inspirational at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, as thousands from all over the world crowded in for prayer, to light a votive candle, or to worship at one of a dozen Masses.
Last Sunday seemed even more so. I started the day meeting the leadership of our Knights of Columbus, the largest volunteer organization in the country. We spoke about our common efforts to protect the innocent, fragile life of the baby in the womb, but also about their sterling work to assist poor, mostly immigrant children attend our first-rate inner city Catholic schools, and their…