From the project’s website:

The Catholic Faith is not about myths or legends, symbols or literary devices.

It’s about an encounter so overwhelming that you want to tell the whole world.

It is an encounter with Jesus Christ.

Throughout history the call of Christ has sent people to the corners of the earth with a message of great joy, a message that has built civilizations, inspired cultures and even sent some to prisons and to their graves.

We have the same call – that’s the New Evangelization.

What did you think about the rest of the “Catholicism” series?

Related articles

• News: Exclusive preview of “CATHOLICISM: The New Evangelization”
• Father Robert Barron’s seven tips for the New Evangelization

Justin Bieber’s Mom, Pattie Mallette, is featured making an appeal to support crisis pregnancy centers. The short is set in the 18th century and tells the story of an incredible day in a woman’s life.

According to the National Catholic Register, Mallette is the executive producer on the film. Mallette, became pregnant at 17 and spent the duration of her pregnancy at a crisis pregnancy center in Canada.

“I felt alone and scared and unprepared and didn’t have anywhere to go,” Mallette told the Register about her experience. “If it wasn’t for the crisis-pregnancy center, I’m not sure where we would be. They offered me a place to stay, education, proper nutrition and gave me the confidence to be the best mom to Justin that I could be.”

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/justin-biebers-mother-adds-her-voice-to-the-pro-life-crescendo/#ixzz2IMfII52g

Related articles

• Justin Bieber’s mother adds her voice to the pro-life ‘Crescendo’
• Fr. Pavone Calls New Film “Crescendo” a Powerful Pro-Life Tool

Mark Kelly at Kainos writes:

Who is the lonely person in your world? Is there a misfit teenager in your school? Is there a single parent down the street? Is there someone in your office who keeps to himself and interacts awkwardly? Is there a nursing home in your area? With the Good’s Shepherd’s compassion for an injured lamb, reach out to the lonely people around you.

You may wind up saving a life. It may be you save 28.

It seems with every one of these events, the common thread is the “loner.” Unfortunately, we rarely have the opportunity to ask these folks, “why?” You can read the rest of his post here.

While it was a horrible act of violence, I hope that we don’t have a rush to create new legislation. If someone is committed to an act like this, they will find a way to get the tools they need. Mr. Lanza tried to buy a gun and was denied. So, instead, he somehow got a hold of his Mom’s guns. Point here is, even with the strict gun control laws in Connecticut, this atrocity still happened.

The media is using language that is stirring emotions, saying Mr. Lanza used a “high-powered rifle.” I don’t know a great deal about different types of gun, but I did learn something last night regarding the .223 caliber rifle that was used. It doesn’t sound like it’s all that “high-powered.”

Patrick Archbold writes at Creative Minority Report:

Lanza used and AR-15 semi-automatic rifle with .223 caliber ammunition.  Fact.

Here is another fact.  That combination of weapon and ammo is  banned in several states for  deer hunting purposes.  Know why?  They consider it too weak.  It is not strong enough at distance to ensure an ethical harvest.  That kind of combination of weapon and ammo is most suitable to ‘varmint’ shooting.

Read the rest at Media Lies And Your Guns.

It was a horrble event.

Please pray to St. Margaret of Scotland for the children’s souls.

Related articles

• A Reminder We Are In The Middle Of A Spiritual War (The Newtown School Shooting Incident Friday)
• It wasn’t good for Adam to be alone
• Media Lies And Your Guns
• Sending Our Sympathy, Respects & Support

Here in the United States, we have just finished a bitterly contested election season. Congress can’t seem to find agreement with President Obama on how to solve the impending “Fiscal Cliff.” Attacks continue to occur on the Sacrament of Marriage. I found his message very comforting in this increasingly divisive world.

One solution he offers…

In order to emerge from the present financial and economic crisis – which has engendered ever greater inequalities – we need people, groups and institutions which will promote life by fostering human creativity, in order to draw from the crisis itself an opportunity for discernment and for a new economic model. The predominant model of recent decades called for seeking maximum profit and consumption, on the basis of an individualistic and selfish mindset, aimed at considering individuals solely in terms of their ability to meet the demands of competitiveness. Yet, from another standpoint, true and lasting success is attained through the gift of ourselves, our intellectual abilities and our entrepreneurial skills, since a “liveable” or truly human economic development requires the principle of gratuitousness as an expression of fraternity and the logic of gift.

We have created an incredibly competitive environment, which makes it difficult for everyone to succeed. It’s hard to compete fairly, if we don’t all begin from the same starting point.

On the issue of life, he says that we need to promote life in all aspects,

The path to the attainment of the common good and to peace is above all that of respect for human life in all its many aspects, beginning with its conception, through its development and up to its natural end. True peacemakers, then, are those who love, defend and promote human life in all its dimensions, personal, communitarian and transcendent. Life in its fullness is the height of peace. Anyone who loves peace cannot tolerate attacks and crimes against life.

I have generally looked at the “life issue” as being a matter of reducing/preventing abortion. There is more to that in this message. Being Conservative politically, I have struggled to reconcile Catholic social teaching with my political views. This section in the message challenged me to consider that the “life issue” can really be expanded to include a person’s quality of life during its “development.” Its not only about the person when they are conceived or dies, but what happens in between.

The rest of his message can be found here via the Vatican.

Please join with me as I travel this path of discovery and examination of my beliefs. Where have you had challenges to your core beliefs? How have you resolved them?