By Damian Thompson
The Amish are good at keeping members inside the fold: 85 per cent of children keep the faith. Combine this with an average of seven children per family, and you begin to understand why the Amish have grown from 6,000 to 275,000 over the past century.
There’s more to this success than big families combined with social pressure. The Amish spell out how to live your life, leaving little space for speculating about the supernatural. They have no seminaries; their aim is not to understand God but to follow him by perfecting their daily living. That’s a modern recipe as well as an ancient one.
The Amish, Hasidic Jews and Salafist Muslims are all good at holding on to their flocks. These three groups have different attitudes to conversion – almost no one joins the Amish, a few secular Jews become Hasidic, lots of Muslims embrace strict observance – but their emphasis on behaviour rather than belief gives them a certain robustness in a sceptical 21st century. Mainstream …More

El Vaticano ha decidido intervenir la congregación religiosa de los Franciscanos de la Inmaculada. Es una potestad de Roma que ningún católico puede negar. Cuando la Iglesia aprecia desviaciones morales, disciplinares, teológicas, administrativas… debe poner, y a veces pone, los correctivos que correspondan. Y encomiendan autoridad en el instituto a un comisario o delegado a quien todos deben someterse como si fuera su superior general. Los Franciscanos de la Inmaculada son una escisión de los Franciscanos Conventuales ocurrida por los años setenta del pasado siglo y que en estos días de hundimiento de las órdenes y congregaciones religiosas presentan un crecimiento notable. Afectos al modo extraordinario de la misa, aunque no lo mantienen en exclusividad, aparentemente eran un modelo de ortodoxia, piedad, pobreza, mantenimiento del hábito religioso, abundancia de vocaciones… Lo que no estábamos acostumbrados a ver en muchos otros institutos regulares. Digo aparentemente porque no hay …More

Georgetown University’s health insurance will cover contraception starting next month for students, faculty, and staff.
The announcement came in the form of a blast email to the entire campus from university president John DeGioia, indicating that because the Affordable Care Act requires that all insurance policies cover contraceptives (including abortifacients and sterilization procedures), all students, faculty, and staff will have that coverage, which goes into effect August 15th.
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Vatican City, 19 July 2013 (VIS) – This morning the Secretary of State released the following communique on the Holy Father's chirograph for the establishment of a Pontifical Commission on the economic-administrative structure of the Holy See:
“The Holy Father, by a chirograph dated 18 July, has established a Pontifical Commission for Reference on the Organisation of the economic-administrative structure of the Holy See.
The Commission will gather information, report to the Holy Father and co-operate with the Council of Cardinals for the study of the organisational and economic problems of the Holy See, in order to draft reforms of the institutions of the Holy See, with the aim of a “simplification and rationalisation of the existing bodies and more careful planning of the economic activities of all the Vatican Administrations”.
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Devout Catholic couples have the best sex, say Catholics, as studies show 'Catholic guilt' is a myth
A Christian group says married Catholic couples have better sex than other demographics.
The group says religious virgins who marry will have great sex - because its the only sex they'll ever know.
Recent studies show that Catholics are more permissive than previously thought.
Only 14 per cent of Catholics would feel guilty about sexual activities including extramarital sex and watching pornography
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The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement in response to the Supreme Court’s rulings on the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8:
Today is a tragic day for marriage and our nation. The Supreme Court has dealt a profound injustice to the American people by striking down in part the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The Court got it wrong.
The federal government ought to respect the truth that marriage is the union of one man and one woman, even where states fail to do so. The preservation of liberty and justice requires that all laws, federal and state, respect the truth, including the truth about marriage.
It is also unfortunate that the Court did not take the opportunity to uphold California’s Proposition 8 but instead decided not to rule on the matter. The common good of all, especially our children, depends upon a society that strives to uphold the truth of marriage. Now is the time to redouble our efforts in witness to this truth. These …More

Last Friday, late in the afternoon (which is apparently the administration’s favorite time to do business) it was announced that President Obama was nominating Ken Hackett (the former head of Catholic Relief Services) as the new U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican.
Many prominent Catholics have praised the appointment.
But what I’m curious to know is, why didn’t Obama nominate a gay man or woman to become the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican?
After all, Obama is on-track to nominate five new openly-gay ambassadors to key posts around the world (including Spain, Australia and Denmark) as part of the administration’s ongoing celebrations of “June gay pride month” — bringing the total to eight.
It’s no secret this is payback to the wealthy gay bundlers who helped finance Obama’s reelection campaign.
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On the feast of St Matthias, 14 May, our postulant received the Benedictine habit and was given a new name. Below is Mother Abbess’ talk in Chapter on that occasion.
In today’s liturgy of the Feast of St. Matthias, we are given clear evidence of God’s elective love, a theme prominent also in the Prologue of Our Holy Father St.Benedict to his Rule: “What can be sweeter to us, dearest brethren, than this voice of Our Lord inviting us? Behold, in his loving mercy the Lord shows us the way of life.” Ecce pietate sua demonstrat nobis Dominus viam vitae.
We also choose, or rather elect to respond to this invitation. A monastic vocation is, therefore, the meeting of two choices, God’s and ours. In choosing to follow Christ in the monastic life, a person sets aside other choices, which could have brought natural fulfilment and even the plaudits of the world. Instead, she seeks to walk carefully in the truth, to study beauty, to practise goodness and engage in self-conquest, to become “communis …More

The speedometer on Teresa Forcades' battered silver Peugeot saloon shows 130kmh, but Spain's most famously radical nun is so busy talking she seems oblivious to the 80kmh speed limit signs above the motorway near her Sant Benet convent on the slopes of Montserrat, Catalonia's sacred mountain.
The woman whose biting criticism of everything from banks to big pharmaceutical companies has shot her into the political limelight is rushing to Barcelona's train station so she can travel to Valencia to deliver a speech. Then she will fly to the Canary Islands for the next appointment on her public speaking schedule.
She is on the campaign trail to promote a radical manifesto for revolutionary political change (link in Catalan). In the black headdress of the Benedictine order, Forcades has emerged as one of the most outspoken – and atypical – leaders of southern Europe's fragmented, confused far left.
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