A useful review of the salutary influence of the conciliar tradition in colonial Maryland

From: Did Catholics Establish Religious Liberty in America?

Our Dear-Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America, by Michael D. Breidenbach, traces why and how Catholics have advocated for their own religious freedom in America, and their contributions to the ability of all citizens to worship God according to the dictates of conscience. The author highlights the roles two families played in these debates: the Calverts and the Carrolls.

 

Organs of the liberal media showcase anti-Christian progressive Christians preening and calling Trump anti-Christian

Tutt Tutt . . . looks like bullshit

The Rev. Ann Kansfield, smoking, cursing, lesbian preacher employed by the FDNY (church and state issue anybody?), sure knows how to get her name in the newspapers, here, where however you never learn from the Christian Science Monitor that she's a smoking, cursing, lesbian:

Rev. Ann Kansfield, the minister of proclamation at Greenpoint Reformed, isn’t sure how much the congregation’s recent surge can be attributed to a “Trump bump.” More people voted for Bernie Sanders in Greenpoint, after all, than any other area of New York City in the Democratic primary last year, and Reverend Kansfield noticed a simmering political energy going back to 2015.  

Up to then, the church had plateaued with about 35 adult members. On Sunday, there were more than 60, including children. “We were already established as the progressive church in the neighborhood,” she says, noting that LGBT inclusion and its soup kitchen and food pantry were its primary ministries. “But with this new energy, we’ve been doing some deciding over who we are and what we do, and what following Jesus should look like in our context.”

As it happens, this Christian Science Monitor story links to an Atlantic story here from last December which is in fact skeptical of the surge in attendance, but where, lo and behold, another guy pops up who also manages to work the organs of the liberal media by being outrageous, namely the devil-denying Timothy Tutt, except the Atlantic never tells you that Timothy Tutt denies the existence of the devil:

While a number of pastors spoke about their parishioners’ feelings of pain, they also spoke of a newfound sense of mission. “I am finding the coming Trump presidency … to be clarifying,” wrote Timothy Tutt, the senior minister at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ in Bethesda, Maryland, in an email. “As a liberal Christian preacher it helps me find my voice. It helps me know who I am called to be. And helps our congregation know who we are—and who we aren’t.”

"Progressive" Christians such as these, the Atlantic informs us, imagine that Trump is "the antithesis of everything Christian".

Written without the slightest hint of irony.

Is "Catastrophic Damage" God's Judgment For ObamaCare Ruling?

Catastrophic damage to power grids occurred hot on the heels of the ObamaCare ruling last week, centered on Washington, DC, as reported here:

Almost 2.4 million people from Illinois to Virginia were still without power Monday morning, with the biggest concentration of outages in the Washington, D.C. area. ...

Power crews worked on Monday to restore service to homes and businesses, and officials in some areas said the job could take up to a week. Utilities in Ohio, Virginia and Maryland described damage to their power grids as catastrophic.

I believe the technical legal phrase for such catastrophes for insurance purposes is "acts of God."

Religious people sometimes find theological significance to such acts. Secular people do too: God is very useful to them when it comes to not having to pay for the damage He is supposed to have caused.