FROM an essay by Archbishop Michael Augustine, writing in 1893:

Why am I here in this world? What is my destiny? What is the chief, proper, and only aim or object for the attainment of which I should struggle and strive? This question is one that every rational being must propose to himself, and to the solution of which all his thoughts, words, and actions should be directed.

Every human being must have, here below, some special and fixed aim and purpose. It is contradictory to the very nature of man to even think otherwise. Moreover, we see in the visible world surrounding us that everything created has its own peculiar aim and purpose, and one which it must and does strive to attain and accomplish. Indeed, we measure the worth or worthlessness of every created thing in proportion as it is fitted or unfitted for the end for which it is intended. (more…)

“POPE” Francis said today that victims of criminal trespassing should ask God for forgiveness for objecting to people breaking into their homes and pilfering their goods. They should welcome thieves, even let them move in if they want to, and uphold their dignity. (more…)

    HERE'S an interesting article in The Wall Street Journal, also posted by Brenda Walker at VDARE, about the migrants who are leaving Senegal for Europe. Drew Hinshaw writes: Senegal is a stable West African democracy, and Kothiary has profited from the currents of globalization transforming rural Africa’s more prosperous areas. Flat screen TVs and, increasingly, cars—mostly purchased with money wired home by villagers working in Europe—have reshaped what was once a settlement of mud huts. The wealth has plugged this isolated landscape of peanut farms and baobab trees into the global economy and won respect for the men who sent it. But it has also put European living standards on real-time display, and handed young farm hands the cash to buy a ticket out. A Senegalese woman is quoted: “What is happening now is not that different from the time of slavery,” Mr. Diop said. “We are losing the arms we need to build this country.” De-Christianized Europe is a materialist utopia for Africans. Would they be risking everything to get to Europe if they were greeted by gargoyles and black-clothed clerics instead of social workers and pornographic billboards? Would they flee their families and homes to settle in an alien culture if they were reminded of that ancient pessimism once they hit Italy's shores? It's not surprising that Africans will do anything to be part of such a frivolous, man-centered culture. On that subject, here is a video showing the…

SAGE McLAUGHLIN writes:

Don’t you hate the modern secular trope, recited on television and radio whenever some tragedy strikes, that “our thoughts” are with the afflicted? Our thoughts? What does that even mean? (more…)

ANN CORCORAN writes about the Sudanese refugee who was shot by a police officer in Louisville, Ky., after he threatened the officer with a seven-foot flag pole. He spoke Dinka, a language of southern Sudan, according to court translation records. He struggled to communicate in English, his friends said.  [He lived here since 2001 and could not speak English!—ed] Manyuon fled war-torn Sudan in 2001 and settled in Nashville, according to Bart Weigel, communications director for Catholic Charities of Louisville, which offers resettlement services to refugees. Imagine what it is like for someone who is mentally unstable, poor and from a primitive society to cope with life in modern America. Look at this man's face. He looks intensely unhappy.

IN THIS interview, Megyn Kelly of Fox News is admirably indignant over the alleged denial of due process to an Amherst student expelled after what was an apparently false accusation of rape. [Warning: Vulgar language.]

The feminist belief in female infallibility and the chaos caused by sexual liberation have led to tyranny on campus. It’s a soft tyranny. No one is thrown in prison camp. Instead, lives are derailed. The accused are humiliated. (more…)

THE Baltimore Sun has apparently been the victim of an Internet hoax. An article is in circulation claiming authorship by a staff writer. As you can see, it is rife with heresies. It could never have  been produced by The Sun. 

The Black Dilemma

“For almost 150 years the United States has been conducting an  interesting experiment. The subjects of the experiment: black people and working-class whites. (more…)

JONATHAN LAST writes in The Weekly Standard: [W]hatever the Supreme Court rules in the coming weeks in Obergefell v. Hodges, the same-sex marriage campaign is far from over. It hasn’t even reached the point of consolidating its gains. Rather, it is still in its aggressive expansion phase. Next up on the docket are transgender rights—even before Caitlyn Jenner, it was hard to go a week without a transgender story on the front page of either the New York Times or the Washington Post—and polyamory. Then the push to bring religious organizations—schools, charities, and para-church groups—to heel will intensify. Already, Catholic Charities has been driven out of adoption and foster care in places like Illinois, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia because that organization doesn’t place children in same-sex households. (Tellingly, this rebuff has been deemed not a regrettable by-product of the gay-marriage movement, but a victory for it. The goal is not live-and-let-live.) Then will come the big fight over breaking the churches themselves. And if you think that the same-sex marriage movement will stop short of trying to force churches to perform gay weddings, then you haven’t been paying attention. Last's most important point concerns why even petty forms of dissent, such as the refusal by bakers to make cakes for same-sex "couples," will be squelched. Why? [Same-sex marriage activists] realize that they have not persuaded society of the rightness of the revolution they actually seek. In other words, it is precisely because this revolution is not…

JOSÉMARIA writes: While we are in the month of the Sacred Heart this article by Charles A. Coloumbe sheds light on this long-forgotten dimension of this admirable and life-changing devotion: Veneration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus has gotten a bum rap. For many people, Catholics and otherwise, the seemingly effeminate images of Our Lord pointing to His — literally — bleeding heart were dismissed as purely private devotional images best suited for old ladies. For others, such things as placards identifying the driver of a car as a member of the Auto League of the Sacred Heart were the worst kind of kitsch. For still more folks of a thoughtful nature, it was all well enough in its way, but a relatively recent devotion without deep roots in Catholic history. All of these notions are dead wrong. [cont.]  

  JANE writes: This photo accompanied a front page article titled: "On the rise: Number of female firefighters continuing to grow." The photo sure doesn't match the blah blah blah of the article.

ALMOST EVERY day some new atrocity, in word or deed, is committed by the man performing as pope of the Catholic Church. It all seems like a crass, nightmarish reality show. Whether he be hobnobbing with Cuban Communists or praying with, as opposed to for, non-believers or telling Catholics that sin is part of their “identity” or appointing an archbishop who approves of same-sex “marriage” or preparing his Marxist eco-cyclical or secularizing St. Peter’s Square or insulting cloistered nuns and heaping scorn on other devout Catholics with their “prayers and ideas,” almost every day Jorge Bergoglio shows why the position of sedevacantism, which holds that the papacy is currently vacant, is common sense. This emperor has no clothes. A non-Catholic cannot logically be pope.

Here Fr. Anthony Cekada answers some of the common objections.

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HERE is an important letter I sent today:

Lisa Lambert
Intel Capital Diversity Fund
Intel Corporation
Latte-with-Skim Boulevard
Palo Alto, California 12345

Dear Ms. Lambert,

I have recently been informed of your exciting new venture in capital venturing. As I understand it, you will be giving away $125 million to start-up companies run by women or minorities.

Congratulations! I have just the project for you. (more…)

  HENRY McCULLOCH writes:  I know this is a GOP-partisan news gatherer, but the title story by Cliff Kincaid about Pride Month celebrations at the Pentagon is worth reading (with sick-bag close at hand). We are long since through the looking glass. Not very long ago this is something I would have expected to read as a parody in American Lampoon - if that rag's creative writers were creative enough to imagine such a farce, which I doubt. I should say, Lord, help America. But, really, what for? The U.S. government is now without doubt the world's most powerful peddler of perversion. I'm glad I don't work for it any more!

W.O. writes:

I read a letter to “Dear Abby” from a troubled man who thought he was a woman. This man’s wife couldn’t accept the fact that she was married to a man who had declared himself a woman, and was considering divorce if she could retain custody of their children. Guess which one “Dear Abby” suggested should get counseling and which one should retain legal counsel. (more…)

DON VINCENZO writes:

I recently returned from a one-month trip to Japan where, among the major components that constitute the Japanese mindset, I noted a strong societal affirmation that Japan must remain … Japanese. One does not see many other racial or ethnic groups in Japan; in fact, a walk in any major – or minor – town or city in Japan will confirm the noticeable absence of foreigners, except Chinese and American tourists, all of whom can remain in the country for only 45 days. This island nation is at least 95 percent homogeneous, and to the Japanese that is not a problem. But too many “gai-jin,” or foreigners, believe the Japanese national uniformity is a violation of multicultural ethos, and that this mindset must be changed.  Enter Ariana Miyamoto.

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A Nobel-winning British biochemist has come under fire for expressing his views about the integration of men and women in science labs. According to The Guardian, Tim Hunt was speaking to a conference of science journalists in Korea, when he fantastically argued in favor of single-sex labs. He made the following insensitive and dehumanizing comments:

“Let me tell you about my trouble with girls … three things happen when they are in the lab … You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you and when you criticise them, they cry.”

Hunt did not criticize the performance or work of female scientists. (more…)

SVEN writes from Alaska:

Music from the ′60s is often remembered as the anti-music of rock and roll as made by the Rolling Stones, Beatles, etc., but there is this song (albeit a little kitschy) that was a huge hit across the boards in ’66, staying at the number one spot for five weeks, even though they never play it on the radio anymore.

It celebrates the manly virtues of honor, courage, perseverance, and loyalty. Those aren’t themes found in music since then, except occasionally in country songs. I think people are still receptive to the good and beautiful, but there has been a concerted effort to starve people of it. When the cultural ship is righted, I think we will find that the hunger for true art is unabated. (more…)