Tuesday, February 12

The truth about "campaign-finance reform" and free speech from Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee:

Big Media loves these kind of speech regulations, which only apply to players other than themselves. If the panoply of restrictions in the bill actually became law, perhaps the biggest single beneficiary would be Big Media: Those who own and produce the content of the news sources on which many Americans already are overly reliant. Under these restrictions, Big Media would have even greater power to define the public-policy agenda, and the average citizen would be even more dependent on the biases of media gatekeepers.

Signs of Changing Times.

Local communities join to preserve religious orders' property. Not that the religious orders are interested in seeing them preserved, mind you.

...residents believed the Mallinckrodt convent would remain safe in the hands of Loyola University. The university has taught classes in the building off Ridge Road since 1991, leasing it until 1998. Loyola bought the property for $11.6 million from the Sisters of Christian Charity and recently stunned the community with its announcement that it intends to sell the land to a developer.

Residents immediately objected to plans by developer Edward James and Valenti Builders to raze the historic 180,000-square-foot building to construct 60 new homes.

Pardon my skepticism, but... I can't help it when reading this report of a supposedly stigmatic priest on tour.

The Rev. Zlatko Sudac, 31, who arrived here on temporary assignment five months ago, has stunned an ever-growing number of worshipers with other astounding claims, among them the ability to heal, levitate, be in two places at once and know the future.

He's got a cross embedded on his head.

Note to up-and-coming mystics: This is not the way of authentic mystical experience. Mystics like Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila and so on didn't "go on tour" and make "claims" about their experiences. They tried to do what Jesus said to do about prayer and spirituality: Keep it quiet and do God's work of love.

Remember what I wrote about below? About sexually abusive priests remaining on diocesan payrolls? Here's an example.

Worcester diocese officials acknowledged yesterday an accused pedophile priest long deemed ``missing'' has been receiving a regular check from the church - even though he runs an English teachers training school in Mexico and Boston.

Kane was located last week in Guadalajara, Mexico, from where he sent Houston attorney Daniel Shea an e-mail stating, ``Greetings from the city of eternal springtime . . . living here in Mexico for five years now and love it.''