SC House Member: Send Haley Ethics Complaint to AG

A House Ethics Committee member says she will propose sending an ethics complaint against Gov. Nikki Haley to the attorney general.

Republican Rep. Joan Brady of Columbia said Tuesday the case has gotten too complicated, and Attorney General Alan Wilson should handle it to uphold the governor's and committee's integrity.

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Daniel Hannan: 'My New Anglosphere Hero is New Zealand's John Key'

By Daniel Hannan

Prime Minister John Key of New Zealand

Is it possible for a Right-wing government to freeze spending and cut the deficit while remaining popular? As they say in New Zealand, ‘yih’. I’ve remarked before that, while no country is physically further from Britain, none is temperamentally closer. Yet there is a difference when it comes to public expenditure. A slowing of the rate of increase in the UK – there have, as yet, been no net cuts – is howled down as an assault on the poor directed by a clique of ancien régime aristocrats. In New Zealand, by contrast, ‘zero budgets’ are seen as prudent and sensible.

Pope Benedict Names Bishop Aquila of Fargo as New Archbishop of Denver

Pope Benedict XVI today named Bishop Samuel J. Aquila of Fargo, N.D., to be the new Archbishop of Denver. A priest of the Archdiocese of Denver before he was assigned to Fargo, Aquila is a strong, orthodox churchman and his appointment, along with appointments in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia, signals a blessed change from the days of Bernardin, Mahony and McCarrick.

Archbishop-designate Aquila is known for his love for the priesthood, a passion for pro-life advocacy, and a heart for youth.  This is another appointment that will inspire and encourage the surge in priestly vocations and the New Evangelization in the United States.  Thank you, Holy Father.  Deo Gratias!

In the following video, Bishop Aquila reflects on the World Youth Day held in Denver in 1993.

A Memorial Day Tribute

The secret of Happiness is Freedom, and the secret of Freedom, Courage. 

Thucydides

Pentecost Sunday

"And when the days of Pentecost were drawing to a close, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a violent wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues as of fire, which settled upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in foreign tongues, even as the Holy Spirit prompted them to speak" (Acts 2, 1-4)

From the Pastor - A Red Letter Day

A weekly column by Father George Rutler.

The term “Red Letter Day” goes back to 325 AD when the First Council of Nicaea decreed that great feasts be marked in red on the calendar. Pentecost is quite literally a Red Letter Day since its liturgical color is red, to match the fire that came down on the apostles fifty days after the Resurrection remade the world.

Saint Augustine said that God made us without our help, but He will not remake us without our cooperation. We did not invent the biological process by which we were conceived and, as zygotes, given the 38 chromosomes that encode the physical nature we have throughout life, but we do have a moral freedom to decide how we are going to use that physical life. The Holy Spirit gives each of us in Confirmation, as he gave the whole Church at the first Pentecost in Jerusalem, seven powers to enable God to make us what He wants us to be: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord.

It is good to study the subtle differences between these gifts. This can easily be done by reading the Catechism, and praying daily for their increase. This is what Blessed Teresa of Calcutta meant when she used to say so often, “Just give God permission.”

There is no need to regret lost opportunities when we still have the breath of life, if we let the Holy Spirit breathe into that life the love that made us. What you might have wanted to become does not matter, so long as you let God make you what he intends you to be. Thomas S. Jones, Jr., a New York poet who died in 1932, wrote a gentle poem that still crops up from time to time:

Across the fields of yesterday
He sometimes comes to me,
A little lad just back from play –
The lad I used to be.

And yet he smiles wistfully
Once he has crept within,
I wonder if he hopes to see
The man I might have been.

We would be condemned to perpetual wistfulness at the contemplation of unfilled promise, were it not for what the Holy Spirit can still make us with our consent. Aristotle taught that the qualities of a good rhetorician are Ethos (talents and integrity of character), Logos (right use of the mind) and Pathos (sharing a sense of the challenges of life in a difficult world). The Holy Spirit shifts this to a formula for holiness by an Ethos that shares the heritage of the saints, a Logos which is God's own truth, and the triumphal suffering of Christ who died and rose again so that we might live forever with Him. So Pentecost is the reddest of Red Letter Days.

Diamond Jubilee March-past in Windsor Castle

Parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Brtish Armed Forces mounted a special Parade and Muster at Windsor in honor of The Queen's 60 year reign on Saturday, May 19.

Troops representing the Royal Navy, the Army and the Royal Air Force paraded through Windsor Castle and town before Her Majesty and The Duke of Edinburgh. This was followed by a muster in the Castle grounds for a unique event before an audience of more than 3,000 Armed Forces personnel, their families, and veterans. An impressive, tri-Service flypast of current and historic aircraft concluded the celebrations.