News - Editorials RSS Feed

President Donald Trump lauded the importance of faith in American life as a foundation for freedom in his speech at the 66th annual National Prayer Breakfast earlier this month. “Faith is central to American life and to liberty,” Trump said, “Our founders invoked our Creator four times in the Declaration of Independence. Our currency declares, ‘In God We Trust.’ And we place our hands on our hearts as we recite the Pledge of Allegiance and proclaim we are ‘One Nation Under God.’ ”

As Mother’s Day approaches in the month of May dedicated to the Blessed Mother, there’s a heartbeat for life in the womb, at least in Iowa. The state legislature early last week passed the “fetal heartbeat” bill. On Friday, Iowa’s governor, Republican Kim Reynolds, signed the legislation into law. It prohibits nearly all abortions in the state after a fetal heartbeat is detected, making it the strongest abortion ban in the nation.

The International Women of Courage Award is presented annually by the U.S. Department of State to recognize “women around the globe who have demonstrated exception courage and leadership in advocating for peace, justice, human rights, gender equality, and women’s empowerment, often at great personal risk and sacrifice.”

Gov. Phil Murphy’s first fiscal budget for New Jersey contains millions of dollars in new taxes to promote his agenda yet mandates cuts for nonpublic school transportation. Does the governor not realize that transportation for nonpublic school students is the lifeblood of nonpublic schools?

Following the revelation that millions of Facebook users’ personal data had been compromised, protecting their privacy was front and center before Congress last week. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder, chairman and CEO was grilled for two days by members of Congress on how to solve his global social media platform’s innumerable failures in this regard.

This year, the Church is marking the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical “Humanae Vitae.” On July 25, 1968 Pope Paul VI promulgated his prophetic encyclical letter courageously reaffirming the Church’s constant teaching about the joyful duty of married couples to collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator in the creation of new human life.

As Holy Week began, there was a major court decision that proved to be an important victory for our religious freedoms. The decision by the U.S. District Court dealt a final, crushing blow to Obamacare’s Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate, which had forced Catholic non-profits to provide coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization in their health care packages to their employees.

Can you spend an hour in prayer on Good Friday for those in the womb who have no voice? Those who support life will be doing just that as Morris County Right to Life is sponsoring an outdoor Stations of the Cross for the unborn in front of Planned Parenthood, 196 Speedwell Ave., Morristown, on Good Friday, March 30, from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m.

The reintroduction of the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA) in Congress is good news for all people of faith who believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. FADA would protect individuals and institutions from discrimination by the federal government based on whatever their beliefs about marriage are.

Unfortunately, in today’s society nasty four letter words are commonplace in many conversations at home and in the workplace. They have become so much a part of the language that they pepper most conversations without an eyebrow being raised at their usage.

Spring break. Those two words often bring dread to parents of the college students who will be heading south. Within the next few days, warm spots like Florida will be inundated with thousands of college kids looking to have a good time with not a care in the world.

With the U.S. Supreme Court declining the Trump Administration’s appeal that sought to end the DACA program and the U.S. Senate’s failure to pass a bipartisan bill that would offer protections for immigrants, the clock is still ticking to find a solution for DACA recipients so that they have a pathway for citizenship.

As Lent began on Ash Wednesday, so did Catholic Relief Services’ (CRS) Rice Bowl, the agency’s flagship Lenten program now in its fifth decade — giving Catholics throughout the country an opportunity to help people in need around the world.

A procedural vote on a Senate bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks failed Jan. 29 when the cloture motion, which would have prevented a filibuster on the bill, failed to get the required 60 votes to pass with a final vote of 51-46.

“Fake news” is a term used almost every day by President Trump to dismiss in a single phrase what he feels is biased news coverage of his administration. But the term, “fake news” is being used more and more these days, with even Pope Francis’ message for the World Day of Social Communications focusing on the topic of “fake news.”

Millions of eyes will be focused on Super Bowl LII, when the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles play Feb. 4 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. But as the kick-off nears, victim advocates are warning all of us about a darker side to major sporting events: human trafficking.

As Catholic Schools Week begins Sunday in the Paterson Diocese and around the nation, it’s an opportunity to reflect on the excellent education our schools offer to students. Our Catholic schools have succeeded where others are failing because they produce students with a solid moral and spiritual foundation based on our Catholic faith and Christian values.

“3,000 die.” Seeing a headline like that glaring back at us would certainly grab our attention. Many of us would assume that such a great loss of human life was caused by a natural disaster, like an earthquake, or in some war-torn third world nation where a demented dictator’s lust for power and total disregard for the life of his fellow countrymen caused such a slaughter of innocent blood.

When Hurricane Harvey struck the Houston area with a record flooding rainfall last August, many houses of worship, like thousands of homes, suffered significant damage. But while the homeowners applied for help to rebuild when the floodwaters receded from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), houses of worship were denied any aid.

Imagine not being able to celebrate Christmas, the Birth of Jesus Christ, or be able to attend Mass on Christmas Day. But that’s exactly how it was for Christian worshippers in Iraq’s northern city of Mosul since 2014 when ISIS overran the city and Christians were not able to celebrate any of Christianity’s holy days.