Inside the Capitol

During the 2012 election season, the Church actively supported a number of issue-oriented ballot referenda initiatives around the country. Most of them failed to pass.

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Since the Minnesota marriage amendment was placed on the ballot last year, and even before that, the Catholic Church in Minnesota has been educating Catholics about what marriage is, why it is important and the challenges all of society will likely face if it is redefined.

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Many Catholics have trouble on occasion aligning themselves with the church when it takes a position on matters of public policy.

What is often under-reported, though, is that there are truly large percentages of Catholics who disagree with the bishops on the question of immigration. This is troubling not only because the bishops’ position is both principled and humane, but because it also effectively balances a number of concerns, such as border security and the importance of keeping families together.

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The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Labor Day statement, “Placing Work and Workers at the Center of Economic Life” declares that the cure to our current crisis is a “national economic renewal that places working people and their families at the center of economic life.”

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Over the last several years, it has been my honor to participate in a number of “Reclaiming the Culture of Marriage” events that have been held throughout the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis at various Catholic parishes.

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A ground-breaking study was released on June 10 that provides one of the first large-scale, random-sample, independent, peer-reviewed, published and critiqued studies ever conducted on the parenting effects of eight groups or household settings with various combinations of male and/or female parents.

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“Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you are also in the body” (Hebrews 13:3).

Two weeks ago, Iran’s court of appeals upheld the six-year prison sentence of Farshid Fat’hi. His crime? Practicing Christianity.

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There is an untruth circulating rather widely in the public square these days — and gaining speed. We need to derail it. The falsehood that is spreading is that somehow, because the church refuses to conform to the default position of practically everyone in contemporary society — that sexual promiscuity is the only authentic sign-post of human freedom — that she, the church, is waging a war on women.

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