Dear Friends,

Pope Francis is fond of reminding Catholics that we were not baptized with vinegar. So, let’s have a little fun this weekend. Surprisingly over the last 70years or so there have been quite a few excellent films that highlight US Catholic culture and the priesthood in a positive way. These films certainly helped break down some of the anti-Catholicism that marred much of our history here in the US and made the Faith more attractive.

Dear Friends,

On this long journey to end abortion in the US, it has often been two steps forward and one step back. That may be the case with the recent US Supreme Court ruling letting stand the Texas law that prohibits abortion after a fetal heartbeat has been detected. The court allowed it to stand for technical reasons while the merits of the law are being litigated in the lower courts. How it ultimately shakes out is anybody’s guess at this point but it is a win for the Prolife cause.

Dear Friends,

Gary Bird died on September 11, 2001. His death certificate lists the cause of death as homicide. Gary flew from Phoenix to New York the day before to attend a scheduled meeting in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. And as his wife has remarked since, “Gary knew he was going to a meeting but what he didn’t know was that it was a meeting with God.”

Dear Friends,

Watching Vice President Harris travel to Hanoi, all the while our courageous service men and women are landing helicopters on top of the Embassy in Kabul as they try to evacuate people, I wondered if anyone in the Biden Administration thought about how bad those optics were? As was the case in Vietnam, while our service men and women acted honorably and bravely, our leadership did not.