Two Takes on the Fate of the Penny

“A Penny for Your Thoughts” Brian Caulfield   With the death of the penny, another traditional saying falls by the wayside. But the upside is that our thoughts may now be worth a nickel or more. Yet, with the expected inflation of our coinage—$9.99 sales will be...
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Pro-choice Stepford Wives

  The Stepford Wives is a 1975 American film, scripted by William Goldman and based on Ira Levin’s 1972 novel of the same name. Goldman also wrote the screenplays for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and All the President’s Men (1976). Another of Levin’s novels was...
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God Is Not Stingy

  A certain Catholic nun, whose name we need not divulge, has drawn upon theology to buttress her pro-choice philosophy. She argues that since God gave her the gift of choosing, she should use that gift. Therefore, in being pro-choice, she is cooperating with God. God,...
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TWO TAKES ON HUNGER

  Speaking October 16 to the Food and Agriculture Organization on the occasion of its 80th anniversary, Pope Leo XIV observed that 673 million people go to bed each night without eating.  Another 2.3 billion cannot afford adequate nutrition.  That’s 36% of the people living...
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Body and Soul

  Recently I attended a wedding in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. The bride was the daughter of an old family friend. The beautiful young woman, radiant in her white wedding dress, used to be a curly-haired toddler with a Minnie Mouse doll always in her arms. The...
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Disinformation about Maternity

  “Disinformation” and “misinformation” have been buzz words for the past several years.  Social media, where every opinionator has global access without the need of a fact-checker or benefit of an editor, spawns this.  Apart from innocent ignoramuses, social media is also...
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Sew What

  Fifteen years ago, someone in the United States would wear a garment seven to ten times before getting rid of it  Now it’s worn only two or three times. Roughly 11.3 million tons of discarded clothing winds up in U.S. landfills annually; about 60 percent of it made of...
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The Pope Who Knew Us

  In the fall of 1979, less than a year after being elected pope, John Paul II took America by storm. Landing in Boston and stopping at major eastern cities, the youthful pontiff lifted the spirits of a nation that was dragging its way toward the end of a long, dispiriting...
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 Looking Beyond Disability—to Joy!

  When our sons were diagnosed with autism, I knew life would change for my husband and me—but not in the ways most people imagine. Yes, there were challenges: sleepless nights, therapies, learning new ways to communicate, and adapting our world to theirs. But there were...
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Assassins’ Code

  Political violence is pretty much a daily feature of today’s news cycle. Assassins are guaranteed their fifteen minutes of fame. But something more than notoriety is happening in the wake of political violence today. Shoot at a pro-life speaker on a college campus, a group...
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