Learning to be Quick to Listen

The first ever Filipina-American to be crowned Miss World revealed her traditional values in a recent television interview. Megan Young, the 23 year-old who was crowned Miss World on Sept. 28, said in a recent television interview that she is pro-life, rejecting both abortion and contraception. Young, who was born in Virginia but moved to the Philippines with her family as a child, was interviewed on ANC, a Filipino news network, when she was asked about the country's recent adoption of a reproductive health law, which was signed by president Benigno Aquino III on Dec. 21, 2012. The new law mandates sex education in middle and high schools and subsidizes contraceptives, including potentially abortion-inducing drugs. Young indicated opposition to the law, saying, “I'm pro-life, and if it means killing someone that’s already there, then I’m against that of course. I'm against abortion.” Asked about contraception, she added that, “I don't engage in stuff like that,” going...

During his daily mass homily Pope Francis warned those in attendance against the idolatry present in greedy hearts, stressing that the Lord gives us our gifts for the betterment of the world. “This greed makes you sick, because it makes you think of everything in terms of money. It destroys you,” the Pope told those gathered in the chapel of the Vatican's Saint Martha guesthouse Oct. 21. In his reflections, the pontiff centered on the Gospel passage in which a man approaches Jesus asking him to help resolve a dispute with his brother surrounding their inheritance, stressing that the story illustrates the problems we face in our relationship with money. “This is a day-to-day problem. How many families have we seen destroyed by the problem of money? Brother against brother, father against son. This,” he urged, “is the first result that this attitude of being attached to money does: it destroys! When a person is attached to money, he destroys himself, he destroys the family. It binds ...

When Christianity becomes an ideology rather than a faith based on a relationship with God, its followers become proud and rigid, Pope Francis said. When Christianity becomes an ideology, "Jesus isn't there, nor is his tenderness, love and meekness. And ideologies are always rigid, always," the pope said in a homily at his early morning Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives. According to a Vatican Radio report on the homily, Pope Francis said that ideological Christians are "rigid, moralists, ethicists, but without goodness. When a Christian becomes a disciple of an ideology, he has lost his faith; he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, but of this way of thinking," the pope said. Pope Francis was commenting on the day's Gospel reading from Luke (11:47-54) in which Jesus admonishes the scribes and Pharisees for trying to control the faith rather than live it and share it with others. The Gospel reading included the line: "Woe to you, scholars ...

Do you have family or friends who are in pain? They may have been laid off, gotten divorced, experienced the death of a love one or are just beat down by life in general. Every time you see them or speak with them, the conversation is filled with sadness and anguish. It can be exhausting to talk with them but that is just what Jesus calls us to do. I have been reading Max Lucado's latest book You'll Get Through This . In it, he deals with the very situations I described at the beginning of this post; people who have experienced bad things. It brings to mind the question of why God allows this to happen. Lucado seems to think that God is using these bad things to build a stronger you and me. He says that while Satan weaves hate and terror, God reweaves it into good. The Bible tells us in many different places that God will use hardship to sharpen us as Christians. When you look at Paul, Stephen, Moses, Abraham, and Jesus himself, you will realize that people going through hardsh...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s repeated public support for abortion is a “grave sin” that means she should not be admitted to holy Communion, out of concern for her spiritual state, said Cardinal Raymond Burke. Cardinal Burke, who heads the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican's highest court of appeal other than the Pope, explained that Canon 915 of canon law “must be applied” in Pelosi’s case. That canon states that people who are “obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin” should not be admitted to Communion. “This is a person who, obstinately, after repeated admonitions, persists in a grave sin — cooperating with the crime of procured abortion — and still professes to be a devout Catholic,” Cardinal Burke said in a July interview with the Minneapolis-based newspaper The Catholic Servant, republished recently in the Catholic newspaper The Wanderer. “This is a prime example of what Blessed John Paul II referred to as the situation of Catholics who have divorced their faith ...

A gathering of researchers and scientists convened in Rome to discuss some of the greatest threats to humanity, identifying the tendency to view persons as less than human as a key factor. “Human beings no longer are looked upon as persons, but as sources of raw material to help those who are the rich and the powerful,” said Dr. Jonathan Haas, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life. The academy – which works to address “issues in law, in culture, in medicine, in bioethics” – met recently for their annual meeting. Established by Bl. John Paul II, the group aims to promote and defend of human life, especially in the field of bioethics as it regards Christian morality. “It's really a profound commitment to defend the dignity of the human person from the first moment of their conception,” he said. Throughout his time in the field, Dr. Haas has observed that the most pressing life issue of modern times is “not individual specific issues, such as abortion or embryonic stem cell res...