New York City, N.Y., Oct 18, 2013 / 06:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Faith and laughter abounded at the 68th annual Al Smith Dinner as comedian Stephen Colbert joked on politicians, big and small, the Pope, and Cardinal Dolan, and the cardinal made a few reflections of his own.
"A sense of humor comes from faith, faith that everything is in God's providential hands, a faith that frees us up to laugh," New York Archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan explained at the Oct. 17 dinner.
"My pleasant task is simply to thank God – thank God as we leave laughing, placing our guests, our honoree, our speaker, our board, our children that we love and help, the city that we love, our country we cherish, our families to which we're now going to return safely into His providential hands," Cardinal Dolan continued, closing the evening.
The Al Smith Dinner is an annual black-tie fund-raising dinner for New York City Catholic Charities, held in memory of former New York Governor Al Smith.
"For 68 years, this has …More

A confused rant on God, Freemasons and the Constitution during a critical vote to raise the US debt ceiling has seen a stenographer removed from the House of Representatives on Wednesday night.
The woman, identified as Dianna Reidy, an official reporter with the Office of the Clerk, stunned House members when she took the Speaker’s Chair while the vote was in progress and said, “Praise be to God Jesus Christ.”
"He will not be mocked. He will not be mocked. Don't touch me. He will not be mocked," the stenographer continued as she was led away by security officers. "The greatest deception here is not 'one nation under God.' It never was. Had it been, it would not have been."
She continued, "The Constitution would not have been written by Freemasons. They go against God. You cannot serve two masters.”
According to Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the presiding officer at the voting, Reidy "came up to the podium area beneath where I was standing and asked me if the microphones were …More

When members of the Dáil voted earlier this year to legalize abortions for the first time for women who claim the need an abortion because they are considering suicide, Fine Gael TD for Dublin Mid West Derek Keating was among those who upset pro-life advocates and voted for the bill.
Now, according to an Irish Independent report, Keating has received word from his parish priest to cease participating as an assistant during Communion.
The Sunday Independent has confirmed that Mr Keating was contacted last Saturday evening by Father Peter O’Reilly, parish priest in St Mary’s in Lucan, who called on him not to fulfil his duties as a eucharistic minister given the controversy during the summer around the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill.
Despite repeated attempts to contact Fr O’Reilly this weekend, he was not available for comment.
In separate correspondence, Mr Keating was severely criticised by Fr Anthony Reilly, parish priest in St Philomena’s Parish in Palmerstown, where he …More

Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” wondered Nathaneal, a disciple of Jesus, in the Gospel of John. Asked today, that question would have many of the city’s residents hard-pressed for an answer.
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The upcoming municipal elections, scheduled for October 22, find the largest Arab city in Israel impoverished and depressed. A nationwide study, conducted by the Ministry of Public Security in August, revealed that Nazareth residents are the most likely Israelis to fear falling victim to crime. They also reported the lowest sense of personal security, along with the inhabitants of the crime-ridden cities of Ramle and Lod.
“Things have deteriorated in this city,” said an elderly woman walking down Nazareth’s main street on Thursday, wearing a necklace with a large golden Cross. “No citizen gets any help — not from the municipality, nor from the government, nor from the police.”
Like its Christian …More

Someone is going to be saying a “mea culpa.”
A medal issued by the Vatican commemorating Pope Francis’ first year as the Bishop of Rome included a rather glaring spelling error, a typo of Biblical proportions.
Engraved with the Latin phrase that the pope says inspired him to join the priesthood as a young man, Italy’s state mint misspelled the name of Jesus, calling the son of God Lesus instead.
The medals, of which 6,000 were pressed in silver and bronze and another 200 in gold, have now been recalled. The design included a portrait of Pope Francis on the obverse and on the reverse a work by the artist Mariangela Crisciotti.
The medals were to go on sale Tuesday and include the Latin inscription: “Vidit ergo Jesus publicanum et quia miserando atque eligendo vidit, ait illi sequere me,” according to the Vatican press office.
Mistakenly, however, the word “Lesus” was printed instead.
The phrase it the pope’s motto. It means, “Jesus, therefore, saw the publican, and because he saw by having …More

A medical test being developed by Kuwait will be used to 'detect' homosexuals and prevent them from entering the country – or any of the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC), according to a Kuwaiti government official.
GCC member countries – Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – already deem homosexual acts unlawful.
This controversial stance is being toughened, with members of the LGBT community stopped at the border and banned from entering the country, according to Yousouf Mindkar, the director of public health at the Kuwaiti health ministry.
Kuwait: The Gulf state is said to be developing a test that willl 'detect' gay people
He told Kuwait newspaper Al Rai: ‘Health centres conduct the routine medical check to assess the health of the expatriates when they come into the GCC countries. However, we will take stricter measures that will help us detect gays who will be then barred from entering Kuwait or any of the GCC member states.’
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Lesbian mother …More

When you can’t beat them, join them. That’s what the Soviet Union did to curtail Christianity’s anti-communist influence. In a new book titled Disinformation, a covert campaign to discredit Pope Piux XII is revealed. In addition, the Soviets tried to influence the church with a Marxist-friendly version of Christianity.
The communists’ strategy against the church had three pillars: A propaganda offensive; the implanting of agents of influence and the promotion of Liberation Theology, an anti-Western spin on scripture.
Disinformation is written by Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking Soviet bloc defector and Ronald Rychlak, Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi. A related documentary has also been released, titled Disinformation: The Secret Strategy to Destroy the West. They disclose how a primary target of Soviet “active measures” was Pope Pius XII.
“The Soviets understood that Pius XII was a mortal threat to their ideology, despising communism as much as he did Nazism. …More

There are dozens of faith-led companies and organizations that have taken to the U.S. court system – so far mostly successfully – to fight back a requirement in Obamacare that they purchase health insurance policies that fund abortion or contraception including abortifacients – as that violates their faith.
Several appeals courts have agreed that the requirement cannot be enforced by the government until a final resolution on the dispute in a courtroom, maybe even the U.S. Supreme Court.
But there’s a new group of pro-life leaders who have cut to the end of the race and have signed a pledge explaining very simply that the government cannot force them to violate their consciences or forfeit their religious freedoms.
And they won’t be buying insurance that includes abortion, and won’t be paying any fines for refusing to participate in “the killing of innocent children.”
The statement promising peaceful civil disobedience already has collected dozens of signatures, including pro-life …More