I first became acquainted with the barbarism of certain aspects of Shari’a law through an article published a few years ago in the New Yorker magazine.  The author detailed how, in many middle eastern countries, Muslim men use the prescriptions…

The beauty of immutable truth commands a certain silence, and this paradox is reason to see The Stoning of Soraya M., which [opened last week] in select movie theaters across the United States.

This film couldn’t be more timely as our good…

In the opening scene of Bella, there is a gorgeous view of the ocean surf with seagulls crying overhead. Eduardo Verastegui’s resonant accent is heard in a voice over, saying, “My mother always told me, ‘If you want to make God…

Once you get past [those of the] Ten Commandments that deal with humans’ relationship to God, the first “horizontal” commandment is that people honor their fathers and mothers (Exodus 20:12). Last month we honored mothers. If you went to church,…

St. Francis Xavier, the Jesuit missionary to India and Japan, famously died on an island near Macao before reaching the mainland of China.  Overland trade routes, though, had brought Christian missionaries from the Syrian Church to the imperial city of…

Here is a quick reference book on some of the saints of the Bible.  <i>Saints of the Bible: exploring Scripture with holy men and women</i> by  Theresa Doyle-Nelson.  (Huntington, Ind. : Our Sunday Visitor.  111 pages.  Paperback.  ISBN 978-1-59276-317-7.  $9.95. …

Prayer is an integral part of the Christian’s journey toward a real, personal relationship with God. God gave us the gift of prayer because of His desire to love us and abide with us, but I must admit that there…

Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), professor of symbology at Harvard University was swimming his customary laps in the University pool, when he emerges from the pool face to face with a bleary-eyed stranger Claudio Vincenzi (David Pasquesi) carrying what he immediately…

Gina Loehr provides in her book short biographies of many women saints, blessed, venerable and other holy women with one man included, Blessed Luigi Corsini the husband of Blessed Maria; who were husband and wife and were beatified together as…

The journey of Clarence Thomas from a childhood spent in poverty in rural Georgia to his appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States is a remarkable American success story. Yet his My Grandfather’s Son: A Memoir is less about…