Blog - August 2014 RSS Feed

The feast day of St. Augustine  is celebrated on August 28 and the feast of his mother, St. Monica, is celebrated on August 27.

I came across an article written by James Foley, the journalist who was brutally executed by ISIS terrorists this past week. The article is from Marquette Magazine, and James describes how faith and prayer sustained him during an earlier imprisonment in Libya.

Feast Day of St. Bernard of Clairvaux is celebrated on August 20.

Today the Holy See released a letter written by Pope Francis to Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations regarding the situation in Iraq. The letter condemns the violent persecutions underway in the country, and calls on the international community to act swiftly and decisively to stop the humantiarian disaster currently taking place.

God reminds us of what he intends for all of us in Mary, our Mother.

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, and all believers around the globe.

Immigrant children coming into this country have been the subject of much attention, debate – and, fortunately, great compassion by many – especially our Catholic charitable agencies and parishes. For the most part, they are young people, without their parents, who are arriving in this country seeking a refuge from poverty or gang violence.