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.

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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.

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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…

WOW! at WOG

My Dear Sisters in Christ,

I am so eager to share with you about our most recent Women of Grace National Conference that was held in Sacramento, CA this past weekend, but I am about to head out the door to speak at St. Raphael’s Catholic Church in St. Petersburg, FL. in just a few minutes, so — I will blog about it later today. Suffice to say that it was an amazing conference! I’ll be back with you later, so take a look.

Blessings in Jesus and Mary,

Johnnette