It’s Game Time. Are You Ready to Help Fight the Good Fight?

April 20, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

Consider these dismal realities we face today:  The “Notre Dame Scandal,” FOCA, rampant moral relativism, militant atheism, anti-Catholic attacks in the media, apathetic and confused Catholics . . . The list of such contemporary problems is a long one. 

If the above challenges bother you as much as they bother me — and I personally believe that they should bother each and every committed Catholic — then I have no doubt that you’d like to do something to help correct the serious problems they represent.

You want to help spread the Truth of Jesus Christ far and wide. You want the Truth to shine even more brightly into this present darkness that is steadily enveloping our world.

Well, now there is a simple, highly effective way for you can join me and many other dedicated Catholics in becoming part of the solution: You can become a member of
the Envoy Institute of Belmont Abbey College — a vibrant, thoroughly Catholic apostolate dedicated to the promotion of Truth to the modern world. . . . please click the banner to see how you can help . . .

Join Patrick Madrid

Are You A Bad Samaritan?

April 13, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

We all know the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:29-37.  But have you ever considered what it means to be a bad samaritan?


A bad Samaritan is one who sees the needs of others and, whether because of laziness, greed, prejudice, pride or some other failing, refuses to help. A bad Samaritan recognizes that he can and should act to help someone out of a predicament but he stifles the voice of his conscience, that’s telling him to do something. A bad Samaritan is the embodiment of one who, by his refusal to act on behalf of another, commits sins of omission. In the Confiteor prayer at Mass, we tell publicly proclaim:
 
I confess to Almighty God,
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have sinned through my own fault.
In my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done and what I have failed to do . . .” (continue reading)

There was not a dry eye in the room as these women spoke from the heart

April 13, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog


My son Timothy, coordinator of the Bethesda Healing Ministry, writes about a recent training session for Catholic seminarians who, when they become priests, want to more effectively counsel and minister to women who have had abortions.

Formation Day on October 4th, which included talks and presentations on topics related to post-abortion ministry, mass, testimonies from several women who have gone through the healing journey with Bethesda and now serve as Companions for others, and a panel discussion with Q&A. Theresa Shively, the Companion Coordinator for Bethesda, facilitated the day’s events and Fr Dean Mathewson, Bethesda’s Ministry Chaplain, offered advice to the seminarians on how they might incorporate these ideas into their priestly ministry in the future, teaching them how to approach and handle pastoral situations with the heart of Christ, and how to make sure the mercy of God does in fact reach souls. These were priests and future priests once more listening to the heart of Christ.

Nowhere was this more evident than when the Companions gave their testimonies. These women shared with everyone present their heart-rending stories of having made the sorrowful decision to abort their babies, the subsequent grief it caused them, and the effect it had on their lives. They spoke of the painful period – often years — when they struggled and grieved until they finally came to rediscover the love and forgiveness of God. They summoned the courage to start on the difficult journey of healing. They sought to come home to be made whole, to be forgiven. And they were.

 
There was not a dry eye in the room as these women spoke from the heart.
 
Afterward, one seminarian commented, “Now I know what my priesthood is for; now I know what it’s all about.” His classmates nearby all agreed and voiced similar sentiments. (continue reading)

NB: If you’d like to be in touch with Tim about this vital apostolate (timothymadrid at gmail dot com),visit  http://bethesdahealing.org.


A Catholic Kid Asked Me, "Will there be Internet in Heaven?"

April 10, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

Here’s a snippet from a call I took yesterday on my “Open Line” radio show. Samuel, a precocious 11 year old, asks an interesting question, and I’m not sure my answer was all that satisfying to him . . .

Listen:



To subscribe to my Thursday show as a podcast, just copy the URL below into your preferred podcasting tool software (e.g.  iTunes, Juice, Odeo, Winamp, etc.), and you’ll automatically receive this podcast each time it’s published:

http://www.ewtn.com/rss/ol_thursday.xml



What can BROWN Do For You? Here's what:

April 8, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

Some of the coeducational denizens of Brown University have sunk a little deeper into the mire of ridiculousness and irrelevance. Observe the university’s Undergraduate Council of Students’ new manifesto condemning the institution’s recognition of Columbus Day. And here is a snippet from a news report about it:

“Hundreds of Brown students had asked the Providence, R.I. school to stop observing Columbus Day, saying Christopher Columbus’s violent treatment of Native Americans he encountered was inconsistent with Brown’s values. . . .” (continue reading)


When you get over your headache from reading that, you may want to avail yourself of some anti-venom for this latest round of anti-Columbus silliness, which can be obtained here, here, and here.

What can BROWN Do For You? Here’s what:

April 8, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

Some of the coeducational denizens of Brown University have sunk a little deeper into the mire of ridiculousness and irrelevance. Observe the university’s Undergraduate Council of Students’ new manifesto condemning the institution’s recognition of Columbus Day. And here is a snippet from a news report about it:

“Hundreds of Brown students had asked the Providence, R.I. school to stop observing Columbus Day, saying Christopher Columbus’s violent treatment of Native Americans he encountered was inconsistent with Brown’s values. . . .” (continue reading)


When you get over your headache from reading that, you may want to avail yourself of some anti-venom for this latest round of anti-Columbus silliness, which can be obtained here, here, and here.

Article: Why the Human Mind is a Terrarium for So Many Lies

April 6, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

Consider the following statements:

  1. Neil Armstrong never landed on the moon but was bouncing around in a TV studio on July 20, 1969, with Walter Cronkite in a nearby booth to report on the alleged event.
  2. The baby baptized as William Shakespeare on April 26, 1564 in Stratford-on-Avon grew up illiterate and thus never wrote any of the works attributed to him.
  3. The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were brought down on September 11, 2001, not because two planes, gorged with jet fuel, flew into them but because the federal government had planted explosives in them at strategic locations.
  4. Jesus Christ never existed.
  5. The Holocaust never happened.

Strange to relate, each of these sentences has found advocates somewhere in contemporary society. Now of course there are varying degrees of moral turpitude involved in subscribing, however sincerely or disingenuously, to these sentences. Despite that moral variety, however, they all have at least this in common, besides their flagrant falsity: It is impossible to convince those who propound these statements of their falsity, partly (but only partly) because the events being denied lack analogies to the everyday world of predictable events.

These denials, in other words, are not solely due to malevolence, although in many cases ill will must be present in the person who voices such views. My concern here is more with the epistemology (loosely defined) that lurks behind the inability to refute such statements. In other words, I want to ask: Why, besides obvious mendacity, does contrary evidence never count with people who claim they sincerely believe these assertions?

The reason I wish to describe these five sentences (needless to say, I could generate a larger list) as “epistemic pathologies” can best be seen from an incident in the life of Albert Einstein. After the Nazi takeover of the German government in 1933, over two hundred German scientists signed a public letter condemning relativity as “Jewish physics,” which for that reason had no place in the science curriculum of the Third Reich. To which Einstein dryly retorted: If these advocates of “German physics” were right, one signature would have sufficed.

True enough, and brilliantly riposted. But what an ironic comfort his retort must be to contemporary Holocaust-deniers! What does it matter, they will retort in turn, if far more than two hundred historians say the Holocaust happened? One would suffice if it had really happened. So here I stand contra mundum, brave Holocaust-denier that I am, forthrightly facing the world of false consensus! (continue reading)

Cardinal George Speaks to the Press About the Notre Dame Scandal

April 6, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

It's Time to Come Clean. It's Time for "Soul Wow"

April 6, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

Here’s a very, very clever outreach by the Catholic Dioceses of Brooklyn and Rockville Center to all those sinners who need to go to confession. (That includes you and me, by the way).

Listen to the man and git er done. This week. Before Easter. Don’t forget.




Visit Soul Wow!

It’s Time to Come Clean. It’s Time for "Soul Wow"

April 6, 2009 by  
Filed under Patrick's Blog

Here’s a very, very clever outreach by the Catholic Dioceses of Brooklyn and Rockville Center to all those sinners who need to go to confession. (That includes you and me, by the way).

Listen to the man and git er done. This week. Before Easter. Don’t forget.




Visit Soul Wow!

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