I’ve been doing a lot of traveling lately, which means I have been to a lot of different Catholic churches lately. In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a deacon at St. Jerome led what was, for me, a surprise Saturday-morning Holy Hour, complete with Morning Prayer and Benediction. Knowing I was not a parish regular, he went out of his way to make himself and his parish known to me, by way of welcome. In Arizona, the deacon at St. John Vianney in the Sedona Mountains, reviewed some of the responses in the new translation of the Mass with early arrivers.

Who are these men, and where do they come from? In a new book for children, Elizabeth Ficocelli answers these questions, in seeking to educate and...READ MORE

Revealing overlooked Roman Missal Changes - Barry Hudock, OSV Newsweekly

How To Pray With Your Spouse: Four Simple Steps - Christopher J. Stravitsch, HLI America/Truth & Charity Forum

Simple English Propers, 2nd Sunday of Advent - Jeffrey A. Tucker, New Liturgical Movement

“Advent is a Time for being deeply Shaken. . . “ - Carl Olson, Ignatius Insight Scoop

J.R.R. Tolkien on Conversion - Fishing in the Tiber

Two Difficulties - G.K. Chesterton, The Distributist Review

How’s this for “Diversity” and “Inclusion”? - The Motley Monk, The American Catholic

The Assent Owed to Vatican II and SSPX Obtuseness - Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture

Covering Contraception, Protecting Conscience -...READ MORE

WASHINGTON — Charges of anti-Catholic bias were leveled during a Dec. 1 congressional hearing that scrutinized the federal government’s decision to end its funding relationship with a Catholic agency that serves trafficking victims.

The three-hour hearing that examined charges of a politicized grant-review process at the Department of Health and Human Services featured heated rhetoric from GOP congressmen, who asserted that political interference had led the federal agency to reject a grant proposal from a top-rated Catholic agency. An HHS official defended the agency’s decision to award grants to two agencies that received lower scores in an independent review.

Congressman Darrell Issa,...READ MORE

VATICAN CITY(EWTN News/CNA)—To mark World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers appealed for universal access to life-saving treatment for all AIDS victims and urged others to show solidarity with them.

“Although the international community began to work against this infection over 20 years ago, unfortunately it is estimated that 1.8 million people still die every year because of HIV. These are people who could lead normal lives if they only had access to suitable pharmacological therapies, those known as antiretroviral therapies,” the council’s president, Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, said Dec. 1.

The development of suitable treatments means that AIDS...READ MORE

On Becoming Small & Losing it for the Nuns - Fr. Christensen, White Around the Collar

Solitude and Political Friendship - Anthony Esolen, Public Discourse

Catholic University’s Same-Sex Dorms Foster Friendship, Respect - John Garvey, Washington Post

Can the Church Ban Capital Punishment? - Christopher A. Ferrara, Crisis Magazine

A Bitter Pill, Indeed - Misty, Catholic Sistas

Famous Detroit Assumption Grotto to be Closed - Diane M. Korzeniewski OCDS, Te Deum Laudamus!

Attacks to Religious Freedom & the Real Purpose of the Firstst Amendment - Msgr. Charles Pope, AOW

How many more Lives will be Sacrificed to Western Sexual Ideology? - Carolyn Moynihan, MercatorNet

Haven’t Got Time for...READ MORE

NEW YORK — There are thousands of doctors in New York City, so the addition of another physician to the rolls wouldn’t seem to matter much.

Yet when Dr. Anne Nolte merely announced that she was planning to set up practice in Manhattan two years ago, a whole network of New York women began rejoicing.

Nolte, who was known as Dr. Mielnik before her marriage last July, is a natural-family-planning physician who does not prescribe contraceptives or refer for abortions. In a city known for its diversity and appeal to every taste, hers is the only practice in a city of 8 million people focusing solely on the Creighton Natural Procreative Technology (NaPro). That’s the system, developed by Dr....READ MORE

WASHINGTON (EWTN News/CNA)—The U.S. House of Representatives opened an investigative hearing on Dec. 1 into whether or not the Department of Health and Human Services was justified in denying grants to the U.S. bishops’ human-trafficking program.

George Sheldon, acting assistant secretary for the department’s Administration for Children and Families, testified that the department funded groups who “could best meet the needs of human-trafficking victims,” which did not include the U.S. bishops.

Sheldon said that the administration found all the organizations “equally” qualified and decided that the awards would go to the groups that would offer referrals for “family-planning services” and...READ MORE

Does Psalm 69:8 Proves that Mary Had Other Children? - Joe Heschmeyer, Shameless Popery

An Exhortation to the Clergy - Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture/On the Culture

The Most Controversial Decision: Challenging Pro-Life Witness - Chris. O. Tollefsen, Public Discourse

Messianic Prophecies: Psalm 21 - Donald R. McClarey, The American Catholic

Will Mel Gibson Baptize Chanukhah? - Peter Freeman, Crisis Magazine

On Joe Carter on Distributism - Donald P. Goldman III, The Distributist Review

Dignitatis Humanae Inst.: Promotes Natural Law in Europe - Edward Pentin, Catholic World Report

The Catholic Church and World AIDS Day - Christopher White, First Things/On the Square

Surrender and...READ MORE