The National Catholic Reporter has named two of the men at the heart of the Supreme Court’s landmark same-sex marriage case its “persons of the year.”

Greg Bourke and Michael DeLeon were two of the several dozen plaintiffs in the case Obergefell v. Hodges. In June, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of these couples and legalized marriage equality nationwide. MORE

York (United Kingdom) (AFP) – British Prime Minister David Cameron was expected to visit flood-stricken parts of northern England on Monday, as troops helped tackle a deluge that has swamped the historic city of York.

The government has dispatched hundreds of soldiers to help deal with unprecedented flooding in the county of Yorkshire, where hundreds of people have been forced to flee their homes. MORE

WASHINGTON: Islamic State has sanctioned the harvesting of human organs in a previously undisclosed ruling by the group’s Islamic scholars, raising concerns that the violent extremist group may be trafficking in body parts.

The ruling, contained in a January 31, 2015 document reviewed by Reuters, says taking organs from a living captive to save a Muslim’s life, even if it is fatal for the captive, is permissible.

For a US government translation of the document, click here. MORE

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says Muslims should strive towards improving the world’s opinion of Islam, which he says has been tarnished by violence.

“We must remove Islam’s negative image from today’s cyber and real space,” he told a conference in Tehran.

Mr Rouhani, a religious moderate, said Islamic principles opposed violence.

In a veiled reference to Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, he also criticised nations which had bought US weapons and fired them at fellow Muslims. MORE

I was one of a handful of leftist non-Christians at a private Christian high school in the Deep South where, at graduation, everyone received a Bible embossed with their names in gold lettering. Which made me an oddity at college, in the bastion of liberal values that is the American Northeast: Reflecting on high school with my classmates, I mentioned one of my favorite classes was a course on the New Testament. And I thought that everyone should study it in school. Private or public.

Please, put down your fiery stakes. My classmates weren’t into it, either. MORE

List of havoc growing bigger and faster. Look out world.

A Christmas Day bushfire has destroyed more than 100 homes in Australia’s Victoria state, officials say. MORE

“Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a recent keynote speech. “Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in Satan. This is the path to degradation.”

The Christian Russian Military

The United States Air Force drops the time-honored phrase “So help me God”, while the Russian Air Force provides Christian blessings to their weapons systems. MORE

More than 25 prominent rabbis from Israel and abroad recently issued a statement calling for a renewed look at Jesus, Christians and the New Testament faith. Quoting from their own sages, these outstanding  Orthodox rabbis are not ashamed to exalt the name of Jesus, welcoming the carpenter from Nazareth back into the Jewish fold.

“Jesus brought a double goodness to the world,” declare the group of well-known rabbis.  “On the one hand he strengthened the Torah of Moses majestically…  and not one of our Sages spoke out more emphatically concerning the immutability of the Torah,” and on the other hand “he removed idols from the nations.” MORE

Updated at 2:30 p.m. Sunday

Hundreds huddled in shelters Sunday while trying to add up the damage to their homes, churches and schools caused by deadly storms that blew through North Texas. MORE

DOS PALOS, Calif. (AP) — A canal that delivers vital water supplies from Northern California to Southern California is sinking in places. So are stretches of a riverbed undergoing historic restoration. On farms, well casings pop up like mushrooms as the ground around them drops.

Four years of drought and heavy reliance on pumping of groundwater have made the land sink faster than ever up and down the Central Valley, requiring repairs to infrastructure that experts say are costing billions of dollars. MORE

100,000 flee flooding in South America – Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina have been hit with heavy rains brought on by El Niño.  ‘Lack of infastructure’ »

South California wildfire burns 1,200 acres  (And this is winter time) – More than 600 firefighters battled the blaze in coastal Ventura County, 65 miles northwest of Los Angeles.  Major highway closed »

Heat Wave Hits East Coast, Texas Faces Rain and Flooding … Continue reading →

Vol 8 Issue 52 ~ Editor: Rev. Fr. Courtney Edward KrierDecember 26, 2015 ~ Saint Stephen, opn!

1. Baptism: Means of Salvation (48)
2. Saint John the Apostle (Bauer)
3. Saint John the Apostle (Butler)
4. Christ in the Home (23)
5. Articles and notices

Dear Reader:

May the New Year bring renewed fervor in our faith. As we live in a world that is ever more in darkness we must all the more walk in the light of the Truth. We cannot excuse ourselves that we cannot live our faith, rather we must understand that nothing has changed—only our attitude of not taking it serious and therefore excusing ourselves from living that faith. Continue reading →

There are a number of people in Church history that I have a lot of respect for. Some of those come from the time of the Council of Nicaea. One of those men is Athanasius, who stood firm in the doctrine of the Trinity. When it seemed all of the Roman Empire was following the heretic Arius, who denied that God was manifest in the flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, a colleague of his told him, “The whole world is against you!” However, Athanasius declared, “Then it is Athanasius against the world.” Another is one that is rarely mentioned, even though his battle was against the same heresy and against the same heretic. His name is St. Nicholas. MORE

Think you can coexist with the Muslim community? Then you probably haven’t heard what this western Islamic religious leader has to say about the horror that is… saying “Merry Christmas.”

In fact, he says that saying Merry Christmas “is worse than fornication and drinking alcohol and killing someone, because you are approving of the biggest crime ever committed by the children of Adam’s sin.”  MORE

The Environment Agency (EA) have issued 15 severe warnings in Lancashire and Yorkshire as forecasters warned up to 4.7 inches (120mm) of rain could fall in some areas.

The Met Office also issued two severe weather warnings, meaning danger to life, for the two counties.

The severe flood warnings – the EA’s highest level of warning – are for two locations on the River Ribble at Ribchester and three locations on the River Calder at Whalley. MORE