The U.S. Senate confirmation hearing for CatholicVote president Brian Burch to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See took place Tuesday morning, with Burch facing questions on how he plans to represent the Trump administration’s foreign aid cuts to the Vatican as well as his position on the Holy See’s relationship with China.

“I am deeply honored and humbled to be nominated by President [Donald] Trump to serve as the United States ambassador to the Holy See,” Burch told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “This is a role of great significance, and I am grateful for the trust President Trump and Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio have placed in me.”

Burch described the U.S.-Holy See relationship as “both unique and vital,” highlighting its character as being rooted not in traditional diplomacy but rather in “shared commitments to religious freedom, human dignity, global peace, and justice.”

The hearing took place alongside those of Trump’s ambassadorship nominees to Croatia and Chile. Burch, a Catholic father of nine, answered questions from a handful of committee members, including committee chairman Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho; Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire; Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Nebraska; and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Florida.

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Multiple U.S. bishops are hailing a proposed bipartisan effort to keep religious workers — including Catholic priests — in the United States by extending their special visas instead of sending them to their home countries for extended lengths of time.

Catholic advocates have been warning for months of a looming crisis in which many U.S.-based priests will be forced to leave their ministries and return to their home countries, after which they would be subject to lengthy wait times before coming back.

A 2023 change to U.S. visa rules created a backlog of visa applicants that has threatened to prevent priests from obtaining a green card before their initial religious worker visa expires.

The backlog was created when the State Department and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) increased the number of immigrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras who are applying for EB-4 visas, the special visa category used by religious workers.

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WarriorAngel said:

In the end - status doesn't matter.

I don't follow celebrities too much.
They do have a Double edged sword.
More temptations being famous --- OTOH --- more prayers because of being famous.

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That’s very true.

Lady Bug said:

Celebrities are still people, though. It's the idolization of them that is the problem.

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Indeed. I don’t understand it either.

WarriorAngel said:

Adding to my prayers.

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Thank you.

God bless you

Gnarwhal said:

No prob, hope you enjoy it!

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Thank you!

Blessings!

essentialsaltes said:

Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation files disciplinary complaint against Gableman​

Complaint alleges 10 counts of violations of state attorney code of conduct against former Supreme Court justice​

It's impressive how many of these legal challenges against the 2020 election of Joe Biden have not just failed in a court of law, but led to ethics violations and disbarments for the attorneys involved in these garbage cases.

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From WI Supreme Court to an Ex-Eaq.

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who led 2020 election probe agrees to surrender law license​

Gableman acknowledged in the filing that the complaint provides “an adequate factual basis” and that he couldn’t successfully defend himself against the allegations.

[The probe itself cost $2.3 million and found nothing.]

Former Major League Baseball star Octavio Dotel has died after a nightclub ceiling collapsed on him and spent his final moments screaming for help.


Dotel, 51, is among at least 44 other people who died following the collapse at the Jet Set club in Santo Domingo 12:44am local time Tuesday.

Earlier on Tuesday, he was reported as having been rescued from the rubble after screaming for help.

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Does the historical evidence show more than one guy running the Church in 1st-century Rome?​

The Letter of Clement to the Church of Corinth, which dates to the latter part of the first century, is often appealed to as evidence that the church of Rome, and by way of implication the bishop of Rome, had a posture of leadership relative to the other churches within the Christian world, since the letter is sent to the church of Corinth to settle certain disputes they were having in response to the church of Corinth’s request for the church of Rome to intervene.

But some Protestants argue that the letter doesn’t speak in the first-person singular, which is what we’d expect if the letter were being issued by Clement, the bishop of Rome. Rather, the letter is written in the name of the church of Rome (“The church of God which sojourns at Rome, to the church of God sojourning at Corinth”) and uses the first-person plural “we”: “We feel that we have been somewhat tardy in turning our attention to the points respecting which you consulted us.”

Moreover, some have argued that Clement wasn’t even the bishop of Rome when this letter was written. Clement wasn’t bishop until around A.D. 90. This letter, so it’s argued, was written some time before the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70. Clement, therefore, would have been a presbyter, apparently working as a secretary of sorts in the Roman church. The reason for this early dating of the letter is that Clement speaks of the Temple as if it were still standing in chapter forty-one of his letter.

For some Christians, these two details indicate that the early church of Rome wasn’t governed by a single bishop, like what the papacy would demand, but rather was governed by a council of presbyters.

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There comes a time when the ability to accept reality, or even more, the truth about a subject, becomes too unbearable to some because it means their position is incorrect. They will ultimately have to concede the point. The anatomy of this process is where we either encounter the exercise of humility or hubris, and in the case of hubris, potential anger or worse, hatred. This example is found quite often within sacred Scripture and becomes more vivid in Jesus’ interaction with Jewish leaders after Jesus’ miracles.

The backdrop of this interaction is carefully presented by St. John in his Gospel on the feast of the dedication of Jerusalem during the winter season, which in many respects is ominous of how the Jewish leaders felt about Christ. As Jesus walked within the temple, specifically in the portico of Solomon, the Jewish leaders could not hold their contempt of Jesus and asked him if he was the Christ by demanding to “tell us plainly.”[1] The nature of the question reveals the Jewish leader's unwillingness to acknowledge the Son of God and the miracles he had performed. Jesus’ response to their demand is blunt and direct,

I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness to me; but you do not believe. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one. [2]

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It's not like they are cute and cuddly.​

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4​

In IVF is Not the Way (Sophia Institute Press, May 2025) I finally got the chance to flesh out an idea I have had ever since I had a miscarriage—the idea of loving an embryo. This was one of the times when my faith and science clashed hard in conflict. It also was a time when philosophy helped make sense of things.

Just a “Chemical Pregnancy”
​

The scenario I am about to describe happens to a lot of Catholic women. If you’re not Catholic, just try to see it through our eyes. Our faith informs us univocally that children are the supreme gifts of marriage to be respected as persons:

A child is not something owed to one, but is a gift. The “supreme gift of marriage” is a human person. A child may not be considered a piece of property, an idea to which an alleged “right to a child” would lead. In this area, only the child possesses genuine rights: the right “to be the fruit of the specific act of the conjugal love of his parents,” and “the right to be respected as a person from the moment of his conception.”
(CCC 2378; Citing Donum vitae, II.8)

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Donum vitae is an instruction on the respect for human life in its origin that was issued in 1987 in response to the rise of assisted reproductive technologies (ART), namely in vitro fertilization (IVF). To the question of what respect is due to the human embryo, taking into account his nature and identity, the answer is concise:

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Reach into the very back of a desk drawer … Who knows what will be there?

Being an active member of Our Sunday Visitor’s staff for years meant that I traveled to the Holy Land on many occasions.

Often, the trip involved flying to Israel aboard El Al, the country’s international airline.

Flights would usually leave an American airport in the early evening. After departure, in those days, a full, hot meal was served. El Al follows the Jewish dietary, or kosher, regulations, and on each passenger’s tray — since many passengers were not Jews — was a pamphlet explaining kosher law.

Jesus and the Apostles surely followed kosher rules, but as gentiles began to convert to Christianity — and as St. Peter experienced a private revelation from God — Christians abandoned Old Testament dietary restrictions (see Acts 10:9-33).

Well, I found that pamphlet in a drawer, and in reading it, Catholic teachings came to mind — not exclusively about food, but statements regarding the environment by Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Francis, who in 2015 wrote an encyclical on the subject, Laudato Si.

The sacredness of human life​

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Twenty Catholic and evangelical Protestant scholars have issued a joint statement on where both traditions are unified and where they are distinct in their understandings of the four marks of the Church: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.

The Nicene Creed was initially adopted at the First Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325, but the referenced “four marks” were added to the creed at the second ecumenical council less than four decades later, in A.D. 381.

Although some interpretations of the councils are debated among Christian faith communities, the Catholic Church, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches, and most traditional Protestant communities all recognize the validity and authority of these councils and profess a vernacular translation of the creed.

Scholars associated with the Evangelicals and Catholics Togetherproject have now released a seven-page statement on the four marks titled “The Pillar and Foundation of Truth.”

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The United States Supreme Court has issued a stay on an order requiring that the government return an El Salvadoran man who was deported and sent to a prison in his native country.

In a miscellaneous order issued Monday, Chief Justice John Roberts stayed an order from the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland regarding the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

Additionally, Roberts requested a response from plaintiffs by Tuesday night, to which lawyers for Garcia responded soon after the miscellaneous order was issued.

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Stephen3141 said:

This is not a history written by the Church (obviously), but goes through the
large changes in attitudes toward Christianity, after the emperor Constantine
decreed that Christianity was now "legal".

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Indeed, but like many books by Western historians, it is inaccurate in its treatment of the Eastern churches.

By the way, what I am saying is not controversial or disputed among scholars, whether Christian or secular, and can be readily gleaned from even the most accessible sources of docuemntation on the history of Eastern Christianity, which, as a matter of fact, did not use Latin (except for the Romanians, Moldovans and Aromanians, who speak a language derived from a Vulgar Latin dialect), did not write any of their theological works in Latin, and indeed, none of the seven Ecumenical councils were conducted in Latin, and at the aforesaid councils only a few of the attendees, such as Emperor Constantine and Emperor Justinian, and the handful of legates sent by the Bishop of Rome (no Bishop of Rome - they were not styled Pope until the sixth century, after the first five councils had happened, attended one of the seven ecumenical synods personally, except perhaps the sixth, I can’t remember, although I doubt it; indeed, even at the councils the Roman Church actively participated in, at Ephesus and Chalcedon*, the Roman bishops were not personally present but interacted with through legations and correspondence, notably the Tome of Leo; Rome did not participate in the Second Ecumenical Council at all.


This council, which was received by the rest of the church as Ecumenical after the fact, is responsible for the current version of the Nicene Creed (which was revised at that council in 381 BC), but which was actually initially a local council of the Church of Constantinople convened by St. Gregory the Theologian, who, exhausted, resigned early into the council, but the council did good work in terms of refining the Creed to exclude the Semi-Arians and Pneumatomachs (those who denied the Holy Spirit) and the Apollinarians (who believed our Lord had a human body and a divine soul, rather than being fully human and fully God, which was the position of the Nicene fathers such as St. Athanasius of Alexandria and their allies such as St. Gregory the Theologian). So at the second Council, it is possible no one present even spoke Latin as the language was not widely used in the Eastern Roman Empire (conversely, Greek was always widely used in ancient Rome, being the language associated with philosophy, taught to Patrician and Equestrian youths at in the Rhaetor, the Roman equivalent of high school, from which we get the Greek word Rhaetoric.
*The Council of Chalcedon Leo I tried to prevent, but he was unsuccessful, thus he made his weight felt with a Tome which was unhelpful and contributed to the schism with the Oriental Orthodox and the short-lived ascendancy of certain bishops who were crypto-Nestorians, such as the sinister figure of Ibas; this was reversed under Emperor Justinian, who initially was a great friend of the Oriental churches, even marrying St. Theodora, a woman venerated by both the Chalcedonians and the Oriental Orthodox, who was Syriac Orthodox, and who would later thwart his attempts to arrest the Syriac Orthodox bishop St. Jacob bar Addai, after the rest of the Oriental Orthodox bishops of Antioch had been arrested, and St. Jacob, known in the west as Baradaeus, proceeded to ordain a few hundred bishops, making the Syriac Orthodox invulnerable to further attempts at decapitation, and the perjorative title “Jacobite” is used in India by the Mar Thoma Christians under the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch).

Edward Gibbon, for all his faults, at least did not make that mistake, although I do not by any means suggest The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which he attributes to Christianity, when it was much more complex, although one thing he did get right was the adverse impact on the Byzantine Empire caused by Justinian’s persecution of the Oriental Orthodox.

Aryeh Jay said:

It takes money to buy the weapons to kill our former friends and allies.

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...and defend a 5,000 mile border......to the North.

Yusuphhai said:

The largest local Bible website in C, www.godcom.net, has been shut down. This website contains text and readings in multiple languages. Checking the C Bible often relies on international websites.

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Prayers for Chinese believers to have easier access to the Bible

“I just had a great call with the Acting President of South Korea. We talked about their tremendous and unsustainable Surplus, Tariffs, Shipbuilding, large scale purchase of U.S. LNG, their joint venture in an Alaska Pipeline, and payment for the big time Military Protection we provide to South Korea,” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social. “They began these Military payments during my first term, Billions of Dollars, but Sleepy Joe Biden, for reasons unknown, terminated the deal.”

That was quick.

I read the headline and thought this was about Trump trying to get a loan in 2021.

Fantine said:

Therefore the Appeals Court, if worded that way, does not authorize DOGE.

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Biden gave all kinds of people access to "sensitive" data. The objections very much come from those who hate Trump or Musk or both and from those who do not want to see waste and corruption exposed.

durangodawood said:

Kim Jong Il, the coolest of them all, doesn't do that.

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Yeah, but like you and the world itself acknowledges, Kim rocks that outfit and hair cut like no other.

Measles is NOT solely a childhood disease.
Unvaccinated adults, face more and more risk from this disease,
the older they get.

The Department of Education canceled all but five of the 109 grants after reviews found “objectionable” DEI themes in the trainings. In one example of the taxpayer-funded trainings, teachers were told that young infants and toddlers can already be classified as racists.

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When I discussed DEI ideology, I pointed out that part of its basis was Critical Race Theory, and I further pointed out that Critical Race Theory ideology constructs a permanent conflict between white and other races based on race alone. Classifying white infants and toddlers as racists is the obvious conclusion of CRT.

I have also discussed that DEI is not supported by the Civil Rights Act legislation that created the Equal Employment and Opportunities Commission which implements Affirmative Action. The DEI initiatives of CRT, Radical Feminism, and Critical Gender Theory are not supported by legislation, only by specific executive orders of the Obama and Biden administration.

They can be rooted out.

The question is whether people of good faith in the Trump administration and in the agencies involved are willing to see where the dividing lines are.

She is definitely showing herself to be one the the best.