By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
Fr. Michael Sopocko, the spiritual director of the woman who brought the message of Divine Mercy to the world, St. Faustina Kowalska, was beatified on Sept. 28 at a ceremony in Bialystok, Poland by Archbishop Angelo Amato, the Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
Yearly Archives: 2008
Pope Says Marital Crises Can be Overcome
By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
Speaking to participants in an international meeting of Retrouvaille, an organization that helps married couples in crisis, Pope Benedict XVI said marital crises can be overcome and be a “passage to a new phase” of their life together.
Dozens of YouTube Videos Show Desecration of Eucharist
By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
During the last month, dozens of videos showing desecration of the Eucharist have been posted on YouTube, sparking public outrage and a national campaign to have the videos removed.
In one video, an individual known as FSMDude goes into a Catholic Church and receives Communion, then goes outside and takes the host out of his mouth. The next scene is in his home where he holds up the Host in preparation to desecrate it.
In all, FSMdude has posted more than 40 videos on YouTube showing Hosts being stepped on, burned, stapled, smoked and nailed to a stick. Videos show him feeding the Eucharist to ducks and a groundhog and flushing it down the toilet.
On his website, he says “From now on, one Eucharist desecration a day, and each day a different method. If they want blasphem[y], we’ll give ’em blasphem[y].”
America Needs Fatima, an organization dedicated to spreading the message of Fatima in the United States, has launched a national petition campaign to have the videos removed from the site.
Their petition asks YouTube staff to “remove all of his videos and any others that target, demean, and aggressively attack Catholics and the Catholic faith.”
The videos are an obvious violation of YouTube community guidelines which state: “We encourage free speech and defend everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view. But we don’t permit hate speech (speech which attacks or demeans a group based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity).”
YouTube users are able to “flag” a video they find offensive and the site promises that their administrators, who review videos 24/7, will “immediately remove any content that violates the Terms of Use.”
However, some of these videos have been on the site for a month.
To demand that these offensives videos be removed immediately, send a petition to YouTube at http://www.americaneedsfatima.org/yt/?sc=e0005.eml2.link3
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Vatican Newspaper Calls U.S. Financial Crisis a “Costly Illusion”
By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
An article appearing in the Sept. 24 edition of the Vatican newspaper, L’Ossservatore Romano, blamed the current U.S. financial meltdown on greed and a lack of regulation and said the proposed bailout by the U.S. government might ward off a catastrophe but it won’t fix the underlying cause of the problem.
Da Vinci Code Viewer Stabs Priest
By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
A parish priest in Rome was seriously injured after being stabbed by a man who admitted to having watched the movie, The Da Vinci Code, the night before.
New Movie Celebrates Faith and Marriage
By Susan Brinkmann
Staff Writer
A new movie based on the successful struggles of a firefighter and his wife to save their failing marriage is set to open on Friday, Sept. 26 in 850 theaters across the country.
Poinsettia Sales Support Planned Parenthood
By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
Buying poinsettias is a beloved tradition at Christmas, but with the nation’s largest supplier giving much of its profits to Planned Parenthood, pro-life Americans are being urged to continue an ongoing boycott of these plants that has already had a substantial impact on the company’s sales.
WOW! at WOG Continued
Life just has a way of interrupting our plans, doesn’t it?
I wanted to get back to you yesterday with some of the details of the Women of Grace National Conference held in Sacramento, CA last weekend but as it turned out, the day seemed to have plans of its own and suddenly it was midnight and my task was left unaccomplished. Do you know what St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) had to say about just such occurrences in her life? She said:
“When night comes, and retrospect shows that everything was patchwork and much that one had planned left undone, when so many things rouse shame and regret, then take all as is, lay it in God’s hands, and offer it up to Him. In this way we will be able to rest in Him, actually to rest and to begin the new day like a new life.”
And so, beginning this “new day like a new life,” I now share with you about the Women of Grace National Conference.
Women Gather for Weekend of Grace
Nearly five hundred women gathered at Sacramento’s Hyatt Regency Hotel located across from the Capitol for the Women of Grace National Conference the weekend of September 19-21. The Conference was preceded by the Benedicta Leadership Institute for Women.
Presenters for the Conference weekend were Catholic journalist and UN watchdog, Mary Jo Anderson; Healing the Culture’s president, Camille Pauley; radio show host and Catholic journalist, Teresa Tomeo; founder and president of Real Love, Inc., Mary Beth Bonacci; Women of Grace founder and president, Johnnette Benkovic; and chaplain and theological advisor for Women of Grace and Living His Life Abundantly, Father Edmund Sylvia, C.S.C. EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo was the keynote speaker at the banquet dinner on Saturday evening. Read the rest…
Report Finds Startling Changes in Abortion Demographics
By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
In the first comprehensive analysis since 1974 of demographic characteristics of women who have abortions, researchers found that women who already have children account for more than half all abortions.
U.S. House Passes Landmark Adoption Bill
By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
Groundbreaking legislation marking the most sweeping Congressional reform of the U.S. foster care system in more than a decade has passed the House of Representatives and is on its way to the Senate where it is expected to pass.
