By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
Pope Benedict XVI is under attack by the mainstream media and the global HIV/AIDS industry for comments he made en route to Cameroon on Tuesday about how the distribution of condoms only aggravates the epidemic. However, experts on the subject say the Pope is correct and that “profiteering” by AIDS organizations is trumping proven prevention strategies such as abstinence.
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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
A Polish newspaper is reporting that the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints has made the decision to beatify Pope John Paul II on April 2, 2010.
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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
Even though the mainstream media is presenting President Barack Obama’s first judicial pick as a “moderate,” many say he’s anything but.
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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
An alarming new trend is spreading among in rural Wisconsin – drinking veterinary medicine used on large farm animals to induce abortions.
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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
The Obama Administration has signed on to a United Nations (UN) declaration calling for global “decriminalization of homosexuality,” a measure opposed by the Vatican as well as former President George W. Bush because it is a step toward outlawing religious opposition to the homosexual agenda.
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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
The European Union has instructed its Parliamentary staff to begin using gender-neutral language and cease using terms such as Mr. and Mrs., Madame and Mademoiselle, Frau and Fraulein, Senora and Senorita.
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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
The year 2007 is destined for the history books. According to federal researchers, more babies were born in the U.S. in 2007 than in any year in the nation’s history, easily topping the peak during the baby boom years.
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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
Politics may soon force the hand of pro-abortion Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to sign a bill that will require abortion clinics to provide patients with an ultrasound image and enable them to hear the heart beat of their fetus before undergoing an abortion. Supporters say the tactic convinces 90 percent of women to forego abortion.
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My landscaping was ravaged by the last frost that hit the Tampa Bay area. I've done nothing about it, fearful that we might get one last blast.
Everything outside my windows looks dead. Brown and decaying. It is sad, though somehow strangely right, to have things dead-looking during Lent. It seems liturgically correct.
For me personally, the sad exterior of my home and the liturgical season are more than "strangely right." They are fitting. And perfectly match the landscape of my heart.
The past five Lents have been particularly poignant for me and have settled into my being like another self. Five years ago, during Lent, my son, Simon, was killed in a vehicular accident not long after he returned to the States from Iraq. Two Lents ago, my husband, Anthony, was in the last days of his life. Brain cancer. He succumbed to a coma on Easter Sunday morning and died three days later.
The lens of life turned brown then, like the shrubbery outside of my home.
And every Ash Wednesday, without a conscious thought to the past, brown comes back and paints the inner recesses of my heart in somber tones.
It's a funny thing about those shrubs, though. They don't tell the whole story. My limited vision sees only brown, but another color is working its way through them. Green.
Lent doesn't tell the whole story either. New life is coming. Resurrection.
And my heart's landscape is short-lived, too. Blossoms are on the horizon. Hope.
On my son's grave marker is the passage Revelation 21:5 -- "Behold, I make all things new." And so He does. My God takes brown and makes it shimmer with gold.
Easter is coming.
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By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Writer
As he embarked on the first leg of his historic trip to Africa, Pope Benedict XVI took the time to speak with reporters about a variety of issues ranging from his private life to the Church’s approach to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
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