According to data collected from the website VocationMatch.com,’s Report on Trends in Religious Life, the past three years have seen the number of candidates preparing for the religious life increase by 19 percent. Young Catholics make up the bulk of those considering religious vocations, with over 50 percent being under 30 years of age.

66 percent of those considering religious life say they are drawn by a “desire to live a life of faithfulness to the church and its teachings.” 50 percent report that dressing in a habit is either “very important” or “essential” to their vocations. 85 percent desire to be involved in an active ministry such as parish work, healthcare, teaching, or prison ministry.

Guess who’s responsible for the homophobia in hip-hop culture?

On last night’s “Paula Zahn Now,” author Tim Wise was asked how pervasive homophobia is in hip-hop culture.

Wise answered: “Well, I mean, it’s pervasive because it’s pervasive in the culture. We have a society where it’s perfectly legal to discriminate against gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people. So what is the bigger issue? The issue is not hip-hop, per se, putting out homophobic messages, though it does. It is a culture which is institutionally homophobic and heterosexist. We have a president who is affiliated with religious organizations and movements that believe that gay people are sick and need to be cured.” (Our emphasis.)

Too bad he didn’t name them, citing chapter and verse.

From Breitbart.com:

The archbishop of Paris and head of the Roman Catholic Church in France, Andre Vingt-Trois, said that France was doomed to a “pandemic of anti-Semitism” during a visit to Israel.

“France is doomed to a pandemic of anti-Semitism,” he told a news conference in Tel Aviv with Israeli Tourism Minister Isaac Herzog after arriving on his first visit to the Holy Land.

They (Jews) know that in a serious situation, we are ready to be at their side,” Vingt-Trois said, emphasizing the “importance of relations between the Catholic church and Judaism”.

According to the latest report from the Barna Group, “American Lifestyles Mix Compassion and Self-Oriented Behavior:”

Compared with political conservatives, liberals are more likely to recycle. But they are also more likely to use sexually explicit material, to have a non-marital sexual encounter, to steal music, to use profanity, to gamble or buy a lottery ticket, to use an illegal drug, to say mean things about others, and to get payback.

Hannity went to parochial school… Journalists who cover TV shows almost never bother to mention where the star of the show went to elementary school. An exception was made today by Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times. Writing about Sean Hannity’s new Sunday-night show on Fox News, and his interview with some of the gals from Nevada’s famous Bunny Ranch, Stanley said that “While Mr. Hannity, who attended Roman Catholic school, interviews scantily clad prostitutes….”

So who ever said that liberals abhor religious profiling? When it comes to Catholicism and sex, the nexus is just too irresistible not to notice.

A Catholic teacher who wishes to divert her dues from the Ohio Education Association due to the union’s support of abortion filed a federal complaint in U.S. District Court in Columbus after her request was denied. Under current Ohio law, only members of the Seventh-Day Adventists and the Mennonites may claim religious objection to paying union dues. (Both denominations have a history of objecting to union membership.) Click here to read the Catholic News Agency piece on this story.

Click here to read that National Review Online article “Moscow’s Assault on the Vatican” by Ion Mihai Pacepa. Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc, discusses how Soviet agents worked to discredit the Church by smearing Pope Pius XII as a Nazi sympathizer. Pacepa reports that the agents were even responsible for the 1963 play “The Deputy,” which made popular the false notion that the pope supported Hitler.

Click here to read Roger Friedman’s piece for Fox News called “No Buyers for Dakota Fanning Rape Movie.”

Friedman has this to say about the film:

There is no point that I can find to the child’s rape.

Once it happens, it’s never discussed. The culprit is never accused or apprehended. The child never tells her story to anyone. There’s no great moment of revelation that could possibly help someone who’s watching the film. It’s simply there for shock value.

Now that ABC has forced Isaiah Washington into rehab for using an anti-homosexual slur, the time is ripe to order Rosie O’Donnell into therapy for bashing Christians. Bill Donohue has agreed to counsel Rosie pro bono

What do feminists think of Dakota Fanning’s child rape scene in “Hounddog?” As of today, there has been only one reply. Carol Lloyd of Salon.com wrote on January 11, “My impulse is not to worry about little Dakota’s future mental health and not to see the movie.” On January 18, Lloyd called herself “an uncompromising Western feminist.”

In other words, whether “little Dakota” has been compromised is not something this “uncompromising Western feminist” is a