The Call of Beauty

Cardinal Raymond Burke on bringing the traditional Latin Mass back in our churches.

Southwark Cathedral Congregation - "Great Is Thy Faithfulness"

The US Army Band, "Pershing's Own," in Oslo for the Norwegian Military Tattoo

The United States Army Band, "Pershing's Own," traveled to Oslo, Norway in May 2012 to participate in the Norwegian Military Tattoo.  The videos and links below not only provide an enjoyable sampling from this very illustrious military band, but a wonderful look at Oslo and a day by day look behind the scenes at one of the world's great military tattoos.  The videos were produced by MSG Les Owen.

Day 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7  

and the Finale of the Norwegian Military Tattoo 2012:

The Chickens of Globalization Come Home to Roost

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Mitt Romney is today the beneficiary of some desperate counsel from alarmed Republicans on how to escape the snare in which he has found himself.

 

Democrats are charging that Mitt was still chairman and CEO of Bain Capital between 1999 and 2002, when the company was advising some of America's premier outsourcers.

 

The facts are in dispute. But the evidence seems on the side of the Romney camp -- that Mitt did not run Bain after he went off to fix the Salt Lake City Olympics. Yet the matter raises a larger question.

 

A Blow to the Patriotic Association: the Bishop of Shanghai a Prophet and Hero

From AsiaNews.it

By Bernardo Cervellera

Bishop Ma Daqin, by refusing the imposition of hands from an excommunicated bishop and quitting the Patriotic Association, is upholding the very religious freedom that the Chinese constitution guarantees, but that is betrayed by religious regulations. His rejection of the Patriotic Association has theological reasons (the PA is "incompatible with Catholic doctrine"), but also pastoral and social. For months, pastors are kept at a distance from their dioceses, on a tour of government sponsored banquets while their faithful have to face poverty. The "opportunist" bishops are like tasteless salt. The value of the lay faithful in reconciliation with the pope.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - A prophet and a hero, this is how many Chinese Catholics - and we with them - define the first steps of the newly elected auxiliary bishop of Shanghai, Msgr. Ma Thaddeus Daqin. In just one day, the day of his consecration on July 7, he rejected the imposition of hands by an excommunicated bishop; did not drink from the same cup of the illicit bishop; publicly resigned from the Patriotic Association (PA), considering this an obstacle to his "pastoral and evangelization work."

The Religious Affairs Bureau did not like this perfectly aimed blow and has confined him to house arrest in the Sheshan seminary, for a forced period of "rest".

Romney Invested in Medical-Waste Firm That Disposed of Aborted Fetuses, Government Documents Show

Alan Keyes has summed up the 2012 presidential election as "a choice between Satan and Beelzebub."  Were Christians to choose between these two evils, would we differ morally from either the communist intent on destroying America, or the hollow, culture of death profiteer?

From Mother Jones 

By David Corn 

Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/Zuma

Earlier this year, Mitt Romney nearly landed in a politically perilous controversy when the Huffington Post reported that in 1999 the GOP presidential candidate had been part of an investment group that invested $75 million in Stericycle, a medical-waste disposal firm that has been attacked by anti-abortion groups for disposing aborted fetuses collected from family planning clinics. Coming during the heat of the GOP primaries, as Romney tried to sell South Carolina Republicans on his pro-life bona fides, the revelation had the potential to damage the candidate's reputation among values voters already suspicious of his shifting position on abortion.

Read the rest of this entry at Mother Jones >>

A Discussion of "The Presidents' Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity"

This is a fascinating conversation about a must read book.  Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy discuss with Peter Robinson their new book The Presidents' Club: Inside the World's Most Exclusive Fraternity.  It reveals the extraordinarily complex roles, contributions and inter-relationships of America's former Presidents.