Islamic Terrorists: "We Must Eliminate the Cross."

Hate.

In a speech to the group, al-Wuhayshi makes it clear that he’s going after the United States, saying “We must eliminate the cross. … The bearer of the cross is America!”

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Clemson Actually Stands Up to Atheists

Stands by football coach.

A prominent atheist activist organization has lodged a complaint against the practices of the Clemson University football program, claiming that it is unlawfully ‘entangled’ in Christianity. The Madison, Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) recently sent a letter to the university, asserting that head coach Dabo Swinney is violating the separation of church and state. “Christian worship seems interwoven into Clemson’s football program,” wrote FFRF Staff Attorney Patrick Elliott. “We are concerned that this commingling of religion and athletics results, not from student initiative, but rather from the attitudes and unconstitutional behaviors of the coaching staff.”

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Crowdfunding Her Way Into the Convent

Student loans are preventing her from entering:

There's only one thing standing between Mary Beth Baker and the convent of the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia in Nashville, Tenn. -- and it's $25,000. The 28-year-old PR exec and self-described "hardcore Catholic" is looking forward to joining the Nashville convent as a nun, but she must pay off her student loans first, as priests and nuns are not allowed to carry debt. Regarding her decision to become a nun, she told The Huffington Post, "As I've been realizing more, it's really about falling in love. I love the idea of being able to live for Christ with an undivided heart."

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Niceraguan Priest Murdered

May have been protecting young girl.

Just a few days after the murder of the Jesuit priest, Father Frans van Lugt in Syria, the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has noted with sadness the violent killing of one of its project partners in Nicaragua, Father Francisco Blandón, the parish priest of the church of the Immaculate Conception in Wiwilí, Nicaragua, who was shot dead on Sunday 6th April. He was struck by two bullets, one in the abdomen and the other in the heart. Father Francisco was a delegate of the Nicaraguan Human Rights Association and a specialist in Canon Law for the diocese of Jinotega. Early investigations suggest that his attacker may have been mentally unstable, since he also shot and killed his girlfriend, who had come to the presbytery to seek advice and help. It seems possible that Fr Francisco may have been shot while trying to protect the girl from her boyfriend’s attempts to shoot her. He had been parish priest here for four years and was greatly loved by the people, who often came to him seeking advice and guidance.

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Drag Show at Catholic College Takes Satanic Turn

Goat horns and everything.

The drag show at the University of San Diego (USD) on April 10 took a satanic turn, according to an email alert from the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund (FCDF) which had a correspondent at the event. The Cardinal Newman Society reported last week that the Vatican’s Congregation for Education stated that a previous drag show at the Catholic university caused “scandal”. USD still proceeded with its third annual drag show titled “Celebration of Gender Expression: Supreme Drag Superstar”.

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A Funny Story About How Kids Made a Nightmare Come True

Parenting is Funny has a good one:

The other night I had a dream that I was being attacked by a crow. The crow was a known serial killer. And now it was after me.

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9 Great Scientists Who Were Priests

But the Church hates science, right?

Like the belief that vaccines cause autism or that GMOs are unhealthy, the notion that science and religion are in permanent conflict is a myth. This superficial argument persists, no matter how much evidence accumulates against it. Mostly, the controversy is kept alive by a handful of individuals -- some more obnoxious than others -- who have built their careers encouraging and exploiting discord instead of harmony. The Catholic Church, of course, is the media's favorite whipping boy. However, the convenient narrative of a Church waging a two-millennia-long battle against science is drastically undermined by a long and inconvenient history of priests who were also productive scientists. Here are a few of them.

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Did Christ Ride 2 Donkeys or 1 Donkey on Palm Sunday?

For years I was confused about Palm Sunday. In Matthew’s Gospel, we read that Christ rode a female donkey and her baby colt. However, in Mark, Luke, and John, we read that Christ rode a donkey without any mention of the her colt.

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Please Pray For Mark Shea's Mother

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Mark Shea's Mother, Mark, and his family.

Rest in peace.

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The Global War on Christianity is Real

John Allen reports at the Boston Globe.

Dutch Jesuit priest Frans van der Lugt, killed in Syria last week just shy of his 76th birthday, personified the best of the missionary spirit in Catholicism. He spent 50 years in his adopted country, humbly serving poor and disabled persons regardless of their race or religion. Whenever a Syrian came to his door seeking help, van der Lugt told a friend, “I don’t see Muslims or Christians, only human beings.”

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Archbishop Urges Prayer, Action Against Colorado Abortion Bill

Stands against the legislatively enshrined culture of death.

Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila is asking the people of Colorado to spend 10 minutes in prayer and take concrete action over the weekend to support the sanctity of human life in the face of a serious legislative threat. In an open letter dated April 11, the Denver archbishop explained that Senate Bill 175, touted as the “Reproductive Health Freedom Act,” is being debated in the Colorado Senate next week. “This over-reaching piece of legislation would essentially shut down any attempt to pass life-affirming legislation in Colorado ever again,” the archbishop warned. “More than that, it enshrines the ‘right to abortion’ into Colorado law.”

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Seven Things You Can’t Do as a Moral Relativist

Funny 'cause it's true:

So you’ve decided to become a moral relativist. Good for you! What could be better than doing whatever feels right? What could be worse than letting someone tell you what you should and shouldn’t do? Plus, it’s one of the easiest worldviews to adopt: Just leave everyone else alone and demand that they do the same for you, and you’ll never have to worry again about whether your actions are right or wrong. In fact, there are really only seven things that you can’t do as a moral relativist. Simply follow the rules below, and you’ll be free from absolutes forever!

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Students outraged as union votes to ban pro-life rallies

Totalitolerance at its finest. The Catholic Herald reports:

Muslims, Catholics, Evangelical Christians and pro-abortion students have joined forces to oppose moves to stop pro-life students from demonstrating or protesting on the Cardiff University campus. Presidents of the Islamic Society, the Catholic Society and the Pro-Life Society attended a student senate meeting last week to contest a motion that would require the student union to “prevent affiliated societies and groups from taking part in anti-choice protests or rallies”

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Fr. Ray Blake on Why Catholics Don't Evangelize

The assumption of an empty hell plays a role.

A few thoughts on Evangelisation with SPES tramping the streets of my parish calling in the lost and the distanced. Someone left a comment recently to the effect that ever since the Second Vatican Council we have been talking endlessly about evangelisation but in practice doing very little, in fact it could be said we have been 'counter evangelising', at least in the North we have lost far more than we have gained: empty churches, empty seminaries, empty convents are a testimony to our success.

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It's Not Too Late for a Good Lent

Merry Catholic writes:

Well, here we are, over a month into Lent. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday, and soon it will be Easter and Lent will be over. So how are your Lenten sacrifices coming along? Are you still keeping up with them? This Lent did you give up TV and chocolate, and vow to go to Daily Mass at least twice each week? If you’re like me, despite the best of intentions back on Ash Wednesday, right about now you’re probably barely making it to Sunday Mass, and you spend each evening channel surfing with one hand while wolfing down M&Ms by the fistful with the other hand. If you’re like me, on at least three Fridays so far during Lent you were halfway through a double bacon burger for lunch when you suddenly said, “Oh no, today is Friday!” Then you vowed to make up for it by definitely abstaining from TV and chocolate for the rest of the day. But as you sat on the couch that the evening, bored and fidgety, the siren call of the clicker and the bag of M&Ms proved too powerful.

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Notre Dame Tries Again to Resist HHS Mandate

The Fighting Irish are still fighting.

The University of Notre Dame has filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for a rehearing of its plea for an injunction against the HHS mandate in front of the entire Seventh Circuit, rather than the panel of three judges which earlier denied the plea, according to The Observer. The petition filed by the University,which can be found online, argues that Notre Dame seeks to provide health coverage to its employees “in a manner consistent with its Catholic beliefs.”

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Dioceses Revise Contracts, Actually Expect Teachers to Uphold Catholic Teaching

Shocking, I know. Of course, some are unhappy.

In response to a number of high profile firings and resignations of teachers in Catholic schools for varying incidents involving same-sex marriages, in-vitro fertilization, or abortion advocacy, a few dioceses are now including language specifying violations of Catholic doctrine that would be deemed fire-able offenses. Dioceses in Hawaii and Ohio have already made changes to their teacher contracts. Some expect similar changes around the country. And some are protesting.

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Supreme Court declines to hear religious freedom photography case

Yeah, it's just freedom of religion. Nothing important that's like in the Constitution or anything.

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to weigh in on a case involving a small Christian-owned photography business that declined on religious grounds to shoot a same-sex commitment ceremony in 2006. The court announced its decision April 7. It did not give a reason for declining to hear the case. “Only unjust laws separate what people say from what they believe,” said Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence of Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Elaine and Jonathan Huguenin, owners of Elane Photography.

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Jesuit, who used YouTube to appeal for help for Homs, reportedly killed

Prayers.

A 75-year-old Dutch Jesuit who refused to leave war-torn Syria, instead staying in Homs to help the poor and homeless, was beaten by armed men and killed with two bullets to the head, according to an email sent by the Jesuits' Middle East province to the Jesuit headquarters in Rome. Jesuit Father Frans van der Lugt, who had worked in Syria since 1966, declined suggestions to leave because he wanted to help Syria's suffering civilians -- "Christians and Muslims -- anyone in need," said Father Giuseppe Bellucci, head of the Jesuits' press office.

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Bombshell: New York not inspecting most abortion clinics

The back-alley is the norm.

Remember Kermit Gosnell? The main reason that the serial killer managed to elude detection for so long was that the state of Pennsylvania didn’t bother to inspect his facility for seventeen years, even though state law required it — and even though previous inspections showed significant causes for concern. The grand jury report specifically blamed politics in Pennsylvania for a lack of action. Had federal investigators not started probing Gosnell for his illegal trade in drugs, he’d still be cheerfully murdering babies that survived abortions and a few of their mothers, too.

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