Catholic News 2
NEW YORK (AP) -- Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle is in conversations with the Trump administration about replacing Sean Spicer as White House press secretary....
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Piece by piece, New Orleans' landscape is changing as city workers take down massive works of bronze and stone that once seemed immoveable in a region where some still cling to a Confederate legacy....
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Pvt. Chelsea Manning is due to be released from a Kansas military prison after serving seven years of her 35-year sentence for leaking classified government materials to WikiLeaks....
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- The runoff election for the Republican GOP nomination to replace Mick Mulvaney in South Carolina's 5th District was too close to call Tuesday night, with the slightest or margins separating the contenders....
NORMAN, Okla. (AP) -- The Latest on severe weather across the nation's midsection (all times local):...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Firing FBI Director James Comey is already coming back to haunt President Donald Trump....
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump personally appealed to FBI Director James Comey to abandon the bureau's investigation into National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, according to notes disclosed late Tuesday that Comey wrote after the meeting. The White House issued a furious denial near the end of a tumultuous day spent beating back potentially disastrous news reports from dawn to dusk....
Moscow, Russia, May 16, 2017 / 04:17 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After malware hacked as many as 200,000 computers throughout the world, the Russians have an idea: blessing the computers with holy water.The most recent attacks have been through a form of ransomware called “WannaCry”, which is malicious software that locks up a person’s data and demands, either through a pop-up window or e-mail, that a ransom be paid or else the data will be destroyed.The cyberattacks have largely targeted hospitals, academic institutions and large businesses like blue chip companies or movie theaters in more than 150 countries throughout the world, including in China, Japan, India and the U.K. Russia was among one of the worst-hit countries in the attack.Part of their solution? Invite Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church to bless computers and servers with holy water.In a photo shared by @EnglishRussia1 on Twitter, Patriarch Kirill can be seen blessing the computers of th...
Moscow, Russia, May 16, 2017 / 04:17 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After malware hacked as many as 200,000 computers throughout the world, the Russians have an idea: blessing the computers with holy water.
The most recent attacks have been through a form of ransomware called “WannaCry”, which is malicious software that locks up a person’s data and demands, either through a pop-up window or e-mail, that a ransom be paid or else the data will be destroyed.
The cyberattacks have largely targeted hospitals, academic institutions and large businesses like blue chip companies or movie theaters in more than 150 countries throughout the world, including in China, Japan, India and the U.K.
Russia was among one of the worst-hit countries in the attack.
Part of their solution? Invite Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church to bless computers and servers with holy water.
In a photo shared by @EnglishRussia1 on Twitter, Patriarch Kirill can be seen blessing the computers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in hopes to protect them from the WannaCry virus. The Russian Orthodox Church has close political ties with the Russian government, making Patriarch Kirill as strong a political figurehead as a religious one in the country.
Like the Catholic Church, the Russian Orthodox Church has a blessing for just about anything, including horses, spaceships and swimming pools.
The Catholic Book of Blessings includes the Order for the Blessing of Technical Installations or Equipment, or the Order for the Blessing of Tools or Other Equipment for Work. Either could be used as a blessing for a computer.
St. Isidore of Seville is often invoked in the Catholic Church as the patron saint of computers, computer users and the internet, because during his life he created the ‘Etymologies' (a type of dictionary), and gave his work a structure similar to that of the database.
Aside from prayer and holy water, tech experts recommend avoiding cyberattacks by keeping computer software up to date, installing anti-virus software, and avoiding suspicious e-mails or pop-ups.
Patriarch of Russian Orthodox church making sure that the Ministry of Internal Affairs computers won't get affected by WannaCry virus attack pic.twitter.com/m2S7rP2iHU
— English Russia (@EnglishRussia1) May 15, 2017
IMAGE: CNS photo/Jonathan Ernst, ReutersBy Mark PattisonWASHINGTON(CNS) -- After a furor erupted over his statement that the Democratic Partyshould support only those candidates who support legal abortion, DemocraticNational Committee chairman Thomas Perez will meet with the head of Democratsfor Life of America, Kristen Day.Day, ina May 16 interview with Catholic News Service, said she had sought the meetingwith Perez before he issued his statement prior to Democrat Heath Mello's loss May9 in the mayor's race in Omaha, Nebraska."We'restill working on the date," said Day, who added she had been able to meetwith previous DNC chairs Terry McAuliffe and Howard Dean, but not Perez'spredecessor, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.Perez was criticized in pro-life circles when he said, "Every Democrat, like everyAmerican, should support a woman's right to make her own choices about her bodyand her health. That is not negotiable," adding, "We must speak up for thisprinciple as loudly as ever and with...
IMAGE: CNS photo/Jonathan Ernst, Reuters
By Mark Pattison
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- After a furor erupted over his statement that the Democratic Party should support only those candidates who support legal abortion, Democratic National Committee chairman Thomas Perez will meet with the head of Democrats for Life of America, Kristen Day.
Day, in a May 16 interview with Catholic News Service, said she had sought the meeting with Perez before he issued his statement prior to Democrat Heath Mello's loss May 9 in the mayor's race in Omaha, Nebraska.
"We're still working on the date," said Day, who added she had been able to meet with previous DNC chairs Terry McAuliffe and Howard Dean, but not Perez's predecessor, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Perez was criticized in pro-life circles when he said, "Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman's right to make her own choices about her body and her health. That is not negotiable," adding, "We must speak up for this principle as loudly as ever and with one voice."
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who had given the invocation at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in 2012, called Perez's remarks "disturbing." The cardinal, who is chairman of U.S. bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities, urged members of the Democratic Party to "challenge their leadership to recant this intolerant position."
Many
point to the flap as having contributed to the loss for Mello, a pro-life Democrat. NARAL Pro-Choice
America and Planned Parenthood had lashed out against Sen. Bernie Sanders,
I-Vermont, and deputy DNC chair Keith Ellison, for saying they would stump for
Mello in Omaha, calling it "politically stupid."
Day disputes that assertion. Demanding adherence to a right to abortion "got us to where we are today," she said, with 38 of the 50 states having Republican electoral majorities -- 27 of them under full GOP control -- compared to just five states where Democrats have full control. The numbers kind of speak for themselves," she said. "And when we push pro-life Democrats out of the party, this is what happens."
At the federal level, "this abortion litmus test has hurt us dramatically. If you look at 30 years ago in the United States House, we had 135 pro-life Democrats and a 292-seat majority. Today, we have 30. We can't get the majority we want without electing pro-life Democrats. The number of pro-choice Democrats has stayed at about 185, 180. If we want to follow NARAL and Planned Parenthood's strategy, we're going to stay there" in the minority, Day said.
She added Mello didn't help his own cause when he said he was "personally pro-life" after "NARAL came into the district and badgered him." "It's not a winning position. You can't do that with any issue," Day said. "It just sounds ridiculous. If you say, 'I believe climate change is real but I'm not going to vote that way,' or 'I believe guns are harming society but I'm not going to vote for any gun control legislation,' nobody would vote for you."
The definition of "pro-life" is "different in different parts of the country," Day told CNS. "In some districts, like in Michigan where I'm from, if you run in Detroit, running as pro-life won't get you very far but if you run as a pro-life Democrat in the Upper Peninsula, you have a pretty good chance of winning, or in Bay City. The party needs people who match the district rather than finding people with California values and running them instead."
Despite the recent controversy, or maybe because of it, "I expect it be a really good meeting," Day said. "Actually with Dean, there were 18 of us. It was a pretty good dialogue."
- - -
Follow Pattison on Twitter: @MeMarkPattison.
- - -
Copyright © 2017 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) -- A week before the sentencing phase of his trial, Dylann Roof got a visit in jail from his mother, who pleaded with him to reconsider his decision to act as his own lawyer in the fatal shootings of nine black worshippers at a South Carolina church....
